This  edition  of  American  Orators  and 
Oratory,  printed  by  The  Imperial  Press,  on 
Ruisdael  hand-  made  paper,  is  limited  to  five 
hundred  copies,  of  which  this  is  number  -: 


AMERICAN  ORATORS 

AND 

ORATORY. 


Being  a  report  of  lectures  delivered  by 
THOMAS  WENTWORTH  HIGGINSON, 
at  Western  Reserve  University,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Western  Reserve  Chapter 
Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution. 


PKINTXD  BY 

C&e  Jmpertal 

CLKTELAND,  OHIO,  MARCH,  1901. 


COPYRIGHT,   IQOI, 

BY 

THE  WESTERN   RESERVE   CHAPTER, 
DAUGHTERS   OF  THE   AMERICAN   REVOLUTION, 


A  Prefatory  Note. 

In  the  year  1899,  the  Western  Reserve  Chapter, 
Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution,  founded 
a  Lectureship  of  American  History  in  the  College 
for  Women,  Western  Reserve  University,  to  be 
filled  each  year  by  some  eminent  historian. 

In  January,  1900,  the  Lectureship  was  auspi 
ciously  opened  by  the  late  Moses  Coit  Tyler,  of 
Cornell  University.  His  winning  personality 
and  his  profound  scholarship  will  always  remain 
a  precious  memory  to  those  who  had  the  privilege 
of  listening  at  that  time  to  this  distinguished 
historian. 

For  the  second  of  this  series  the  Chapter  was  so 
fortunate  as  to  secure  Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson. 

The  enthusiastic  reception  of  these  lectures 
suggested  the  desirability  of  issuing  them  in 
permanent  form  for  the  members. 

The  Chapter  here  offers  a  verbatim  report  of 
these  lectures,  for  which  it  is  indebted  to  Mr. 
Charles  W.  Chesnutt. 

A  special  acknowledgment  is  made  to  Mr. 
Charles  Orr  for  his  helpful  suggestions  in  the 
preparation  of  this  book. 

THE  PUBLISHING  COMMITTEE. 


M760113 


COLONIAL  ORATORY;  OR  THE 
REIGN    OF    THE    CLERGY 


Colonial  Oratory,  or  the  Reign  of 
the  Clergy. 

HE  following  lectures  in  regard  to 
American  orators  and  oratory  are 
founded  in  part  upon  a  course 
of  lectures  upon  that  subject 
which  I  gave  before  the  Lowell 
Institute  of  Boston.  Why  American 
orators  and  American  oratory  are  dis 
tinguished  from  others,  to  be  treated 
separately,  might  perhaps  be  regarded  as  a  matter 
of  quantity  at  least,  if  not  of  quality;  for 
no  one  can  deny  that  the  proportion  of  oratory 
furnished  from  this  side  of  the  water  has  been 
for  at  least  three  centuries  greater  than  that  from 
the  other. 

An  eminent  English  author  who  came  here  a 
year  or  two  ago,  told  me  that  he  came  under  two 
impressions,  both  of  which  were  corrected  by 
the  facts.  He  had  learned,  he  said,  from  Dickens 
and  others,  that  the  two  things  which  every 
native-born  American  enjoyed  and  demanded 
for  his  happiness,  were,  in  the  first  place,  the 
privilege  of  shaking  hands,  and,  in  the  second 
place,  the  privilege  of  making  a  speech.  He  had 


8  Colonial  Oratory, 

already  attended  one  public  dinner,  given  to  one 
of  our  most  eminent  citizens  —  most  eminent  at 
that  time,  at  least  —  and  he  was  informed  that 
it  had  been  specially  stipulated  by  the  subject  of 
the  dinner,  that  he  should  not  be  asked  to  shake 
hands  much,  and  should  not  be  asked  to  speak 
at  all.  It  need  hardly  be  explained  to  those  of 
tolerably  long  memories  that  this  distinguished 
American  for  whom  the  dinner  was  given  was 
Admiral  Dewey. 

Then,  beyond  that,  so  soon  as  we  place  side  by 
side  the  oratory  of  the  original  English-speaking 
man  and  that  of  his  descendant,  the  American, 
we  find  certain  differences  in  methods  which 
although  very  poorly  studied  as  yet,  and  very 
imperfectly  explained,  still  make  the  two  in 
some  degree,  distinct  branches  of  public  speaking. 

I  was  asking  an  English  member  of  Parliament 
a  few  years  ago  about  one  of  the  few  American- 
born  members  of  that  body,  and  the  only  one,  I 
think,  who  has  ever  made  a  speech  there,  how 
he  was  regarded  among  his  fellows. 

He  said:  **  He  has  some  great  obstacles  to 
overcome.  He  was  educated  in  England;  he 
took  honors  at  Oxford,  was  a  fellow  of  Oxford 
for  some  time.  He  might  in  some  respects  pass 
for  an  Englishman.  But  he  has  one  fatal  defect 
—  he  talks  too  well.  Our  people  don't  like  that, 
and  they  dislike  it  particularly  in  Parliament. 
They  don't  like  to  see  a  man  get  up  and  make 
a  speech  as  though  it  were  the  most  natural 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy  9 

thing  in  the  world  to  do ;  they  demand  a  certain 
amount  of  preliminary  hesitancy  —  that  is  good 
form  for  us. ' ' 

And  it  is,  I  think,  absolutely  true.  How  far  it 
comes  from  greater  talkativeness  in  Americans, 
or  from  a  want  of  bashfulness ;  and  how  far  from 
an  awkward  kind  of  bashfulness  in  the  English 
man  himself,  an  undue  feeling  of  pride,  a  feeling 
that  it  is  not  quite  becoming  a  man  to  put  him 
self  in  the  way  of  asking  the  attention  of  others 
to  what  he  says  —  which  of  these  is  the  origin  of 
it,  I  can't  say,  but  I  think  the  difference  is  very 
clear. 

Daniel  Webster,  you  will  find  somewhere  in 
his  letters,  when  he  first  came  back  from  Eng 
land,  was  quite  astonished,  after  hearing  a  subject 
discussed  in  Parliament,  at  hearing  it  discussed 
in  Congress  also,  and  finding  that  the  question 
had  been  settled  in  about  as  many  hours  in  Par 
liament  as  it  took  days  to  settle  it  in  Congress. 

The  Englishman,  as  far  as  I  have  observed,  as 
a  rule  gets  up  with  reluctance,  and  begins  with 
difficulty.  Just  as  you  are  beginning  to  feel 
seriously  anxious  for  him,  you  gradually  discover 
that  he  is  on  the  verge  of  saying  some  uncom 
monly  good  thing.  Before  you  are  fully  prepared 
for  it  he  says  that  good  thing,  and  then  to  your 
infinite  amazement  he  sits  down ! 

The  American  begins  with  an  ease  which 
relieves  you  of  all  anxiety.  The  anxiety  begins 
when  he  talks  a  while  without  making  any 


io  Colonial  Oratory, 

special  point.  He  makes  his  point  at  last,  as 
good  perhaps  as  the  Englishman's,  possibly  bet 
ter.  But  then  when  he  has  made  it  you  find  that 
he  goes  feeling  on  for  some  other  good  point,  and 
he  feels  and  feels  so  long,  that  perhaps  he  sits 
down  at  last  without  having  made  it. 

My  ideal  of  a  perfect  speech  in  public  would 
be  that  it  should  be  conducted  by  a  syndicate  or 
trust,  as  it  were,  of  the  two  nations,  and  that  the 
guaranty  should  be  that  an  American  should  be 
provided  to  begin  every  speech  and  an  English 
man  provided  to  end  it. 

Then,  when  we  go  a  little  farther  and  consider 
the  act  of  speech  itself,  and  its  relation  to  the 
word,  we  sometimes  meet  with  a  doubt  that  we 
see  expressed  occasionally  in  the  daily  papers 
provided  for  us  with  twenty  pages  per  diem  and 
thirty-two  on  Sunday,  whether  we  will  need 
much  longer  anything  but  what  is  called  some 
times  by  clergymen  "the  printed  word"  — 
whether  the  whole  form  of  communication 
through  oral  speech  will  not  diminish  or  fade 
away. 

It  seems  to  me  a  truly  groundless  fear  —  like 
wondering  whether  there  will  ever  be  a  race 
with  only  one  arm  or  one  leg,  or  a  race  of  people 
who  live  only  by  the  eye  or  by  the  ear.  The 
difference  between  the  written  word  and  the 
spoken  word  is  the  difference  between  solitude 
and  companionship,  between  meditation  and 
something  so  near  action  that  it  is  at  least  half- 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy  1 1 

way  to  action  and  creates  action.  It  is  perfectly 
supposable  to  imagine  a  whole  race  of  authors  of 
whom  not  one  should  ever  exchange  a  word  with 
a  human  being  while  his  greatest  work  is  being 
produced. 

The  greatest  work  of  American  literature, 
artistically  speaking,  Hawthorne's  **  Scarlet 
Letter, ' '  was  thus  produced.  His  wife  records 
that  during  the  year  that  he  was  writing  it,  he 
shut  himself  up  in  his  study  every  day.  She 
asked  no  questions ;  he  volunteered  no  informa 
tion.  She  only  knew  that  something  was  going 
on  by  the  knot  in  his  forehead  which  he  carried 
all  that  year.  At  the  end  of  the  year  he  came 
from  his  study  and  read  over  to  her  the  whole 
book ;  a  work  of  genius  was  added  to  the  world. 
It  was  the  fruit  of  solitude. 

And  sometimes  solitude,  I  regret  as  an  author 
to  say,  extends  to  the  perusal  of  the  book,  for  I 
have  known  at  least  one  volume  of  poems  of 
which  not  a  copy  was  ever  sold;  and  I  know 
another  of  which  only  one  copy  was  sold  through 
my  betraying  the  secret  of  the  author  and  men 
tioning  the  book  to  a  class-mate,  who  bought  that 
one  copy. 

Therefore,  in  a  general  way,  we  may  say  that 
literature  speaks  in  a  manner  the  voice  of  soli 
tude.  As  soon  as  the  spoken  word  comes  in,  you 
have  companionship.  There  can  be  no  speech 
without  at  least  one  person  present,  if  it  is  only 
the  janitor  of  the  church.  Dean  Swift  in  reading 


12  Colonial  Oratory, 

the  Church  of  England  service  to  his  man-servant 
only,  adapted  the  service  as  follows:  **  Dearly 
beloved  Roger,  the  Scripture  moveth  thee  and 
me  in  sundry  places, ' '  etc. ;  but  in  that  very 
economy  of  speech  he  realized  the  presence  of  an 
audience.  It  takes  a  speaker  and  an  audience 
together  to  make  a  speech  —  I  can  say  to  you 
what  I  could  not  first  have  said  to  myself.  **  The 
sea  of  upturned  faces, ' '  as  Daniel  Webster  said, 
borrowing  the  phrase  however  from  Scott's 
"  Rob  Roy  "  —  "  the  sea  of  upturned  faces  makes 
half  the  speech. ' '  And  therefore  we  may  assume 
that  there  will  always  be  this  form  of  communi 
cation.  It  has,  both  for  the  speaker  and  for  the 
audience,  this  one  vast  advantage. 

A  brilliant  woman  once  said  to  me  that  she 
had  often  wondered  which  taught  us  the  most 
about  any  man  or  any  woman  —  to  know  every 
act  of  their  lives,  to  read  every  word  they  had 
written,  or  the  first  glance  at  their  faces.  The 
orator  has  the  advantage  of  that  collective  glance, 
and  often  the  audience  has  the  melancholy  ad 
vantage  of  looking  at  one  face  and  very  often 
wishing  that  there  were  more  to  be  seen  in  it. 

Thus  I  have  laid  out  in  a  general  way  the 
ground  and  basis  of  oratory  —  the  communica 
tion  of  man  with  men.  There  have  been  in  this 
country  several  successive  periods  of  oratory,  one 
of  which  I  am  to  describe  as  the  Colonial  Period  — 
what  I  might  call,  in  other  words,  "The  Reign  of 
the  Clergy." 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy  13 

We  get  from  the  Scriptures  themselves  the 
origin  of  the  early  practice  among  the  Puritans, 
of  having  what  they  called  a  pastor  and  a  ^eacher 
to  every  church.  They  had,  you  will  notice,  in 
nearly  all  the  early  Puritan  churches,  that  double 
combination  and  that  double  ministry.  They 
were  bred  on  the  Old  Testament,  and  easily 
recalled  that  strange  scene  in  the  Book  of  Exodus, 
where  the  Prophet  Moses,  endeavoring  to  get  rid 
of  the  terrible  responsibility  demanded  of  him  by 
the  Deity,  begs  off  on  the  ground  that, 

44  O  my  Lord,  I  am  not  eloquent;  but  I  am 
slow  of  speech,  and  of  a  slow  tongue. ' ' 

And  we  read  there  that  the  Lord  was  wroth 
with  Moses,  and  said  to  him : 

"  Is  not  Aaron  the  Levite  thy  brother?  I 
know  that  he  can  speak  well.  And  he  shall  be 
thy  spokesman  unto  the  people." 

So  the  forces  were  joined,  the  pastor  and  the 
teacher.  And  we  may  truly  say  that  the  two 
great  Puritan  migrations  —  the  Plymouth  and 
the  Salem  migrations  —  both  began  in  eloquence, 
that  they  were  founded  upon  eloquent  words. 

When  John  Robinson  said  to  the  pilgrims,  at 
their  last  meeting  in  Europe  before  the  Plymouth 
colony  was  launched,  "  I  charge  you  in  the  sight 
of  God  that  ye  follow  me  no  farther  than  as  ye 
see  that  I  follow  Christ ;  there  is  more  light  yet 
to  break  out  of  the  Word  of  God,"  he  predicted 
the  whole  subsequent  development  of  New  Eng 
land  theology.  And  when  the  leaders  of  the 


14  Colonial  Oratory, 

other  great  New  England  colony,  that  of  Massa 
chusetts  bay,  sailed  from  England,  we  are  told 
that  when  they  were  off  Land's  End  their  chosen 
teacher,  Francis  Higginson,  collected  the  emi 
grants  around  him  on  the  deck  and  said : 

"We  will  not  say,  as  the  Separatists  did  on 
leaving  England,  *  Farewell,  Rome !  Farewell, 
Babylon! '  But  we  will  say,  *  Farewell,  dear 
England!  farewell,  the  Christian  Church  of 
England  and  all  the  friends  there !  We  go  to 
propagate  the  positive  part  of  church  reformation 
and  to  preach  the  Gospel  in  America ! ' 

How  could  any  band  of  religious  emigrants  — 
going  forth  to  their  duty  on  another  continent 
and  across  an  unknown  sea,  fail  to  respond  in 
their  career  to  such  beginnings  of  oratory  as  that? 

Accordingly  we  find  that  the  Puritan  oratory, 
in  quantity  at  least  if  not  in  quality,  was  enough 
to  overpower  the  most  daring  modern  mind. 
Holy  Master  Cotton,  minister  of  Boston,  came 
out  from  England  with  two  clergymen  —  elders 
they  would  have  been  called  —  to  accompany 
him,  and  they  preached  a  sermon  apiece  on  every 
one  of  the  forty  days  of  the  voyage.  After  every 
meal  they  had  a  sermon.  The  sermon  if  it  had 
been  on  land  would  have  been  an  hour  long  at 
least ;  and  on  the  ocean,  where  there  was  nothing 
else  to  do,  it  may  have  stretched  into  a  second 
hour. 

When  Samuel  Sewall,  afterwards  best  known 
as  Judge  Sewall  —  we  know  that  he  was  in- 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy 


tended  for  the  church,  as  every  learned  man  was 
in  those  days  —  when  Samuel  Sewall  preached 
his  first  sermon  to  a  new  parish  he  was  too  shy 
to  look  at  the  hour-glass,  and  preached  for  two 
hours  and  a  half  before  the  sermon  was  done.  It 
is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  add  that  he  never  was 
settled  over  any  parish  and  did  not  remain  long 
in  the  ministry. 

The  vast  extent,  the  vast  elaboration  of  all 
religious  services  in  those  days  is  the  first  thing 
that  impresses  us.  Let  us  paint  for  ourselves  a 
picture  of  a  Sunday  service  among  the  Puritans. 

The  sun  shines  down  brightly,  we  will  suppose, 
over  a  little  forest  settlement,  more  and  more 
cleared  every  year,  so  as  to  carry  the  wolves  and 
bears  and  Indians  into  the  yet  remoter  distance, 
yet  not  so  far  off  but  that  two  stout  gates  at  either 
end  of  the  village  serve  as  protection,  and  no  one 
is  allowed  to  live  more  than  half  a  mile  from 
the  meeting-house. 

There  has  been  no  stroke  of  work  done 
in  the  village  since  three  o'clock 
yesterday  afternoon.     Last  night 
a  preparatory  lecture  was  held, 
and  now  comes  the  consumma 
tion  of  all  in  the  solemn  weekly 
service.     We    will    not    decide 
where  this  little  settlement  was.  xm 
If  it  was  Cambridge  village,  a-  v$ 
drum  has  been  beating  for  the    ^ 
last  half  hour  to  call  the  people 


i6 


Colonial  Oratory, 


together ;  and  if  Salem  village,  a  bell  has  been 
ringing  and  a  red  flag  hung  out  from  the  church 
like  an  auction  flag  —  goods  without  money  and 
without  price  within.  Or,  if  it  is  old  Haverhill 
village,  Abraham  Hay  ward  has  been  blowing  his 
horn  for  half  an  hour  ( a  service  for  which  Abra 
ham  receives  half  a  pound  of  pork  annually 
from  each  family  in  town). 

Let  us  draw  nearer.  Here  are  the  outposts  of 
the  church,  as  it  were  —  the  stocks,  the  whipping 
post,  a  wooden  cage  where  offenders  may  be 
confined.  And  there,  beyond  it,  stands  the 
church  itself,  a  humble  building  as  yet,  possibly 
of  brick,  more  likely  of  wood,  with  a  heavy  stack 
of  chimneys  and  a  bell-rope  hanging  down  in  the 
center  of  the  church  —  like  that  you  still  see  in 
the  old  church  at  Hingham  —  to  be  sounded  from 
within.  You  see  six  or  eight  windows  with  small 
panes  of  glass  or  oiled  paper,  and  between  the 
windows  are  nailed  the  heads  of  all  the  wolves 
that  have  been  killed  in  the  town  that  year ;  but 
the  Quakers  think  that  some  of  the  wolves  have 
|  cheated  them  and  got  inside  in  sheep's  clothing. 
At  the  entrance  to  the  enclosure  surrounding 
the  church,  stands  a  sentinel  in  armor  painted 
black,  carrying  a  match -lock 
musket  in  his  hand.  He  is  girded 
with  his  bandoleer,  supporting 
•his  sword  and  a  dozen  tin  cart 
ridge  boxes.  The  governor  has 
just  passed  by,  with  his  four 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy 


attendants  carrying  halberds  before  him  —  a  com 
bination  of  lance  and  axe  which  you  may  still 
see  carried  before  dignitaries  in  Scotland. 

Then  comes  the  clergyman  led  by  the  sexton, 
who  doffs  his  broad-brimmed  hat  for  the  purpose. 
The  minister  wears  a  black  skull-cap,  a  black 
Geneva  cloak,  and  his  black  gloves  open  at  the 
finger  and  thumb  to  handle  his  manuscript  the 
better  —  a  practice  which  still  lingered  in  my 
childhood  and  perhaps  does  now.  He  ascends 
the  pulpit,  the  boys  on  the  stairs  being  moved 
aside  to  make  way  for  him.  He  faces  his  con 
gregation,  a  few  hundred  people,  * '  seated, ' '  as 
it  is  called  by  the  authorities,  once  a  year.  They 
take  their  places  in  the  order  of  their  social  posi 
tion  —  the  magistrates  and  their  wives,  the  other 
elders  and  their  wives,  and  so  on  down  to  the 
humblest  position  in  the  town ;  and  in  the  corner 
of  each  pew  there  is  a  large  wooden  cage  to  hold 
the  smallest  child  in  the  family. 

These  people  are  dressed  now  for  Sunday, 
sometimes  in  garments  thought  so  showy  that 
the  clergymen  preach  against  them. 

The  young  men  have  great 
ruffs,  they  have  gold  and  silver 
buttons,  they  have  curious  knots 
at  the  knees,  and  great  pictur 
esque  boots  outside.  The  young 
girls  who  sit  beside  them  wear 
silk  or  tiffany  hoods.  They  wear 
embroidered  caps,  immoderate 


1 8  Colonial  Oratory, 

great  ruffs  around  their  necks,  mysterious  things 
called  slashed  apparel  and  cut-work,  which  are 
often  preached  against.  "  Such  pride,"  one 
clergyman  says,  '*  as  it  might  bring  down  the 
wrath  of  the  Lord  on  every  church  in  the  coun 
try."  And  all  the  boys  in  town  are  carefully 
collected  on  the  pulpit  stairs  and  the  gallery 
stairs,  with  a  sufficient  number  of  tithing  men 
detailed  to  take  charge  of  them. 

Then  comes  the  period  of  service.  Four  psalms 
are  to  be  sung  during  the  morning  service,  ten 
tunes  being  the  whole  range  known  in  the  colony. 
There  is  prayer,  and  then  in  due  time  comes  the 
sermon.  It  may  be  an  especial  sermon.  It  may 
be  provided  for  some  particular  case ;  for  some 
funeral,  for  instance,  because  they  have  no  pray 
ers  at  funerals;  or  for  some  wedding,  since 
weddings  are  private. 

Benjamin  Calf  of  Newbury  writes,  in  one  of 
his  quaint  poems,  of  a  certain  clergyman : 

"  On  Sabbath  day 
He  went  his  way, 

As  he  was  used  to  do, 
God's  house  unto 
That  he  may  know 

What  he  had  for  to  show. 

"  God's  holy  will 
He  must  fulfill, 

For  it  was  his  desire 
There  to  declare 
A  sermon  rare 

Concerning  Madam  Fryer." 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy  19 

So  Madam  Fryer  had  her  funeral  sermon. 

Or,  if  we  are  fortunate,  the  sermon  may  be  one 
of  those  which  emerge  like  flowers  in  the  midst 
of  those  dry  old  volumes  of  Puritan  sermons,  vol 
umes  now  hardly  readable  by  mortal  men,  yet 
sometimes  having  titles  that  will  touch  your 
heart.  It  may  be  that  we  are  to  hear  Increase 
Mather's  sermon  on  "  The  Morning  Star,"  or  on 
"  The  Voice  of  God  in  Stormy  Winds,"  or  his 
more  formidable  sermon  called  "  Burnings 
Bewailed, ' '  in  which  he  gives  his  theory  of  the 
great  fire  that  took  place  in  Boston  the  other  day. 
He  attributes  that  circumstance,  not  to  any  trivial 
accident  of  the  elements,  but  it  is  clear  to  his 
mind  what  one  cause  is  responsible  for  it.  He 
attributes  it  partly  to  Sabbath-breaking,  and 
partly  to  monstrous  periwigs. 

* '  Monstrous  periwigs, ' '  he  says,  '  *  such  as  are 
worn  by  some  church-members,  which  resemble 
the  locusts  that  came  out  of  the  bottomless  pit. 
Rev.  9:2,  3." 

These  same  periwigs  are  called  by  an  eminent 
divine,  "  Horrid  bushes  of  vanity,  which  can  find 
no  countenance  either  in  the  light  of  nature  or  in 
express  Scripture.  I.  Cor.  14:8." 

That  was  the  way  in  which,  in  those  formidable 
sermons,  they  clinched  and  hammered  down  each 
doctrine  by  a  bit  of  actual  Scripture  text  driven 
through  it  to  hold  it  there  forever.  And  I  do  not 
doubt  that,  as  one  may  still  see  in  Scotland,  the 
hearers  all  had  their  Bibles  with  them,  and  when- 


2O  Colonial  Oratory, 

ever  a  text  was  announced,  turned  over  the  pages 
rapidly  to  identify  it  and  make  sure  that  the 
clergyman  had  not  cheated  them  with  the  wrong 
verse. 

Or,  it  may  be  that  the  sermon  we  are  to  hear 
is  that  yet  more  formidable  discourse  by  Cotton 
Mather,  the  son,  called  "  Brontologia  Sacra,"  a 
sermon  on  thunderstorms,  written  during  a  period 
of  such  occurrences,  and  delivered,  as  it  happened, 
directly  in  the  midst  of  one.  It  is  divided  into 
seven  separate  chapters,  or  bolts,  with  plenty  of 
sharp  lightning  mingled  in  from  the  Bible  and 
from  the  Hebrew  Fathers. 

Just  as  Mather  says,  **  In  thunder  there  is  the 
voice  of  Almighty  God,"  a  messenger  comes 
rushing  into  the  church,  like  the  man  in  the  book 
of  Job,  to  tell  him  that  his  own  house  has  just 
been  struck,  and  that,  though  no  one  i skilled  the 
house  has  been  filled  with  the  lightning  and  the 
furniture  damaged;  which  Mather  takes  as  com 
posedly  as  any  scientific  lecturer  in  his  laboratory 
would  take  an  unexpected  explosion  of  gas  —  it 
vindicates  the  power  of  the  article.  And  so  Mather 
takes  it  and  says,  with  a  bit  of  superb  and 
evidently  spontaneous  eloquence,  that  he  wishes 
his  hearers  might  be  like  that  magnet  which 
once  in  his  house,  during  a  thunderstorm,  was 
turned  instantaneously  from  north  to  south,  and 
he  wishes  that  the  next  bolt  may  turn  their  stub 
born  souls  from  Satan  to  God.  But  afterwards 
he  has  to  admit  that  Satan  is  allowed  to  have  a 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy  21 

hand  in  thunderstorms  also,  and  points  out  the 
fact  —  which  is  often  referred  to  in  Se wall's  diary, 
for  instance,  and  a  popular  impression  in  those 
days  —  that  for  some  reason  or  other  churches 
and  ministers'  houses  were  peculiarly  vulnerable 
to  the  electric  fluid. 

Suppose  the  sermon,  be  it  an  hour  or  two  hours 
long,  to  be  finished.  It  has  been  the  pomp  and 
circumstance  of  glorious  preaching.  The  con 
gregation  probably  stirs  with  that  slight  expres 
sion  of  ultimate  relief  which  the  most  eloquent 
sermons,  perhaps  even  ordinary  lectures  produce 
when  they  are  at  last  ended.  If  there  have  been 
any  slumbering  eyes  under  the  silk  or  tiffany 
hoods,  they  are  delicately  touched  by  the  wand 
of  the  tithing  man,  with  the  soft  end  of  the  wand, 
which  is  the  tail  of  a  rabbit ;  while  if  little  boys 
have  been  similarly  weak,  the  other  end,  which 
has  the  rabbit's  hoof  upon  it,  taps  the  boy's  fore 
head  less  gently. 

They  have  not  reached  that  fine  point  of  dis 
crimination  which  Henry  Ward  Beecher  an 
nounced  for  the  benefit  of  clergymen  when  he 
was  at  a  country  convocation  of  ministers.  It 
was  in  the  height  of  summer,  and  they  all  com 
pared  notes  on  the  terrible  problem  of  keeping 
the  farmers  in  their  congregations  awake  during 
the  afternoon  service.  Finally  they  appealed 
to  Mr.  Beecher  —  of  all  men,  one  would  suppose, 
the  least  subject  to  that  experience.  He  said 
they  were  not  perhaps  very  much  troubled 


22 


Colonial  Oratory, 


with  it  in  Plymouth  Church,  but  they  had  one 
unfailing  method  to  remove  the  evil. 

'  *  The  sexton, ' '  he  said,  '  *  is  placed  at  a  certain 
point  on  the  gallery  stairway  from  which  he  can 
command  every  face  in  the  church.  He  keeps 
watch  during  the  sermon,  and  his  instructions 
are  if  he  sees  a  single  person  going  to  sleep,  he  is 
to  go  directly  up  into  the  pulpit  and  wake  up  the 
minister. ' '  Thus  another  age  often  brings  into 
operation,  by  higher  instrumentalities,  what  the 
most  skilful  mechanism  of  other  days  could  not. 
In  Puritan  days  they  hadn't  got  beyond  the  tith 
ing  rod  with  a  rabbit's  hoof  at  one  end  and  his 
tail  at  the  other. 

Now  comes  the  expected  moment  — the 
varying  lottery  of  divine  service.  The 
thing  you  cannot  foresee,  the  Sun 
day  Herald,  as  it  were,  of  the 
Puritan  world  is  to  be  unfolded. 
First,  perhaps,  some  new  law 
made  by  the  legislature  is  to  be 
read  and  listened  to  reverently. 
Then  perhaps  some  elder  exer 
cises  on  a  text  of  Scripture  — 
pretty  severe  exercise  it  some 
times  proves  for  a  day  of  rest ;  and 
then  perhaps  some  offending  man, 
possibly  a  magistrate  or  an  elder, 
comes  before  the  audience  and 
with  a  foul  linen  cap  drawn  down 
over  his  eyes  makes  acknowledg- 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy  23 

ment  to  the  congregation  for  some  sin  of  which 
he  has  been  convicted. 

Then  there  is  more  singing,  more  praying,  and 
the  occasion  is  not  omitted  to  say,  **  Brethren, 
now  there  is  time  for  contribution ;  therefore  he 
who  has,  let  him  freely  give. ' '  And  the  people, 
instead  of  sitting  idly  in  their  pews  and  looking 
surprised  that  they  have  left  their  purses  at  home 
when  the  contribution  box  is  handed  around,  the 
people  themselves  have  to  come  up  and  put  in 
their  contributions  before  the  elders  and  in  the 
sight  of  the  world.  Then  the  service  is  dismissed, 
the  people  scatter.  The  women  who  have  ridden 
in  from  outside  and  dismounted  on  the  big  horse 
block,  remount  their  horses  and  ride  away ;  only 
that  a  few,  who  have  come  from  still  greater 
distances,  remain  and  take  their  dinner  of  cold 
pork  and  beans  in  the  meeting-house. 

There  is  the  Sunday  service,  there  is  the  day, 
there  is  the  life  of  those  stern,  simple,  self -de  voted 
people.  They  may  sometimes  criticise  the  ser 
mon  ;  let  them  beware  how  they  do  it !  I  read 
with  pain  that  an  ancestor  of  mine  in  the  old 
Salem  church  called  forth  from  an  irreverent 
parishioner  the  remark  that  he  preached  lies,  and 
that  his  doctrine  was  the  doctrine  of  devils;  — 
and  the  fact  that  his  name  was  Thomas  Maule, 
and  that  he  was  '  mauled '  to  the  extent  of  ten 
stripes  for  saying  so,  is  no  satisfaction  to  that 
clergyman's  posterity. 

Yet  we  know  that  behind  all  this  power,  all 


24  Colonial  Oratory, 

this  enormous  deference,  there  still  remains  a 
curious  kind  of  democratic  relation.  Clergymen 
were  not  called  clergymen,  they  were  called 
elders.  They  were  not  appointed  by  any  bishop ; 
they  were  chosen  by  the  congregation,  and  the 
congregation  could,  if  they  fell  from  grace,  dis 
place  them  and  did  so.  And  yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  society  was  so  organized  that  the  power 
of  these  same  clergymen  was  almost  terrific. 

The  franchise,  for  instance,  was  at  first  given 
to  church-members  only.  But  it  was  the  clergy 
man  who  decided  who  should  be  church- mem 
bers,  so  that  the  clergy  virtually  cast  every 
ballot  that  was  cast  at  the  elections.  Cotton 
Mather  said : 

' '  New  England  being  a  settlement  bound  up  in 
religious  considerations,  the  clergy  ought  to 
interest  themselves  in  politics. "  It  is  curious  in 
how  many  denominations  the  tendency  now  is 
toward  the  other  view  of  the  subject.  And 
when,  in  the  election  of  1673  or  thereabouts  the 
pious  John  Wilson,  wishing  to  promote  the  elec 
tion  of  his  favorite  candidate  for  governor, 
ascended  a  tree  on  Cambridge  common  and 
preached  from  the  branches,  he  reached  a  point 
which  even  the  most  skilful  manager  of  city 
politics  has  hardly  proposed  to  imitate  in  that 
city. 

Those  men  had  a  power  which  we  shrink  from, 
and  yet  which  they  carried  out  with  an  almost 
touching  simplicity  and  self-confidence.  They 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy  25 

were  more  than  themselves,  they  were  the  repre 
sentatives  of  God.  They  spoke  for  the  eternal 
needs  of  the  people,  for  the  principles  of  the  New 
England  government ;  and  we  cannot  deny  that 
oratory  existed  in  them  when  we  think  that  it 
was  by  their  words  alone,  although  thus  lavishly 
displayed,  that  they  ruled  those  young  settle 
ments  and  brought  them  forward  to  the  day  when 
the  rule  could  pass  into  other  hands.  We  know 
that  in  the  worst  things  done  in  those  days  —  the 
treatment  of  the  Quakers,  of  the  Indians,  of  the 
witches  —  we  know  that  good  as  well  as  evil  came 
from  the  rule  of  the  Puritan  clergy.  When  the 
brave  Miantonomoh,  for  suspected  treason,  was 
tried  before  the  legal  authorities  and  they  could 
find  no  charge  against  him  they  turned  him  over 
to  the  elders.  The  elders  decided  that  he  must 
be  put  to  death,  and  the  chief,  Uncas,  was  dele 
gated  to  slay  him  in  cold  blood,  and  did  so. 

King  Philip  —  a  patriot  according  to  his  own 
light,  at  least  in  a  time  when  it  was  not  consi 
dered  a  want  of  patriotism  for  a  man  to  fight  for 
the  freedom  of  his  own  country  against  a  stronger 
one  —  King  Philip  was  pursued  through  settle 
ment  after  settlement,  and  when  he  was  at  last 
entrapped  and  killed,  the  four  quarters  of  his  body 
were  cut  apart  and  sent  to  be  exhibited  in  differ 
ent  towns  of  New  England;  his  head  was  set 
up  and  remained  for  years  in  the  peaceful  town 
of  Plymouth,  and  the  clergy  boasted  that  they 
had  prayed  the  bullet  into  Philip's  heart. 


26  Colonial  Oratory, 

That  side  of  it  looks  rather  dark.  But  on  the 
other  hand  we  remember  that  at  a  later  time, 
when  the  different  colonies  had  become  more  or 
less  united  and  the  council  of  the  united  colonies 
had  voted  to  prosecute  an  Indian  war,  the  Massa 
chusetts  clergy,  satisfying  themselves  that  the 
war  was  unjust,  caused  the  Massachusetts  con 
tingent  to  be  recalled  after  it  was  already  on  its 
way  to  the  field ;  and  they  came  back  and  took 
no  part  in  the  contest.  There  again  the  clergy 
reached  what  is  very  nearly  the  highest  point  of 
unselfish  patriotism  —  to  stand  with  a  minority 
against  what  they  think  an  unjust  war.  The 
clergy,  whom  we  think  of  as  fierce  and  formidable 
among  the  Puritans,  were,  in  reality,  even  in 
those  days,  fathers  of  their  people.  They  were 
kindly,  they  were  sympathetic,  when  you  once 
got  behind  this  veil  of  austerity. 

Nothing  ever  made  the  position  of  the  Puritan 
clergy  quite  human  or  quite  intelligible  to  me, 
until  I  read  that  story  of  holy  Master  Wilson,  the 
man  who  stood  by  Mary  Dyer's  scaffold,  not  to 
protect  her,  but  to  make  a  pious  ballad  on  her 
execution  after  it  was  over.  Master  Wilson,  a 
terror  to  evil-doers,  was  once  at  some  great  public 
gathering,  and  somebody  said  to  him, 

"  Sir,  I  will  tell  you  a  good  thing.  Here  is  a 
mighty  assemblage  of  people,  and  there  is  not 
one  of  them  all  but  loves  Mr.  Wilson. ' ' 

"  I  will  tell  you  a  better  thing,"  replied  the  old 
man.  "  Here  is  a  mighty  body  of  people,  and 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy  27 

there  is  not  one  of  them  all  but  Mr.  Wilson  loves 
him." 

You  cannot  make  that  combine  with  your 
merely  theocratic,  conventional  view  of  the  Puri 
tan  clergy. 

I  remember  also  what  content  it  gave  me  as  a 
boy  when  I  first  read  the  story  of  holy  Master 
Cotton,  another  Boston  clergyman,  one  of  the 
best  of  them  —  the  one  who  was  called  the 
universal  scholar,  the  walking  library,  who  loved 
to  sweeten  his  mouth  with  a  piece  of  John  Calvin 
before  he  went  to  sleep,  he  said.  One  day  as  the 
old  man,  grown  rather  feeble  and  rather  deaf, 
was  walking  the  streets  of  Boston  some  street 
boys  saw  him.  It  was  a  new  idea  to  me  that 
there  could  be  any  street  boys  in  the  Puritan 
time ;  I  supposed  they  were  street  little  old  men. 
I  knew  there  were  boys  but  I  did  not  know 
exactly  where  they  were  kept,  but  it  never 
occurred  to  me  that  they  could  be  allowed  to  be 
in  the  streets  at  all.  Some  street  boys  came 
along,  and  one  of  them  said:  **  Let's  put  a  trick 
upon  old  Cotton. ' '  And  you  can  fancy  the  old 
man  walking  along  in  his  Geneva  cloak  and  his 
cocked  hat,  and  his  cane  patting  the  ground  as  he 
went  meditating  on  the  nineteenthly  or  the  twen- 
tiethly  of  his  next  Sunday's  sermon;  and  you  can 
imagine  those  boys  combining  to  see  what  trick 
they  would  dare  to  put  upon  him ;  and  you  can 
imagine  them  consulting  together  and  pushing 
one  another  up  to  it:  "  You  do  it!  "  "  No,  no! 


28  Colonial  Oratory, 

you  do  it."  "No,  you  do  it!"  And  finally 
perhaps  the  one  who  proposed  it  slinking  off  into 
the  background,  as  is  usually  the  case,  and  some 
little  fellow  who  has  been  put  up  to  it  by  the 
others  runs  up  behind  him  and  twitches  his  cloak 
and  says,  * '  Cotton,  thou  art  an  old  fool ! ' '  Now, 
what  does  the  Reverend  Mr.  Cotton  do?  Does 
he  call  for  the  tithing  man  and  have  those  boys 
sent  to  jail  or  to  the  whipping-post?  Not  a  bit 
of  it !  There  is  human  nature  in  the  old  man ; 
and  so,  as  he  trudges  along,  he  suddenly  turns 
round  upon  them  just  in  time  to  see  their  heels 
disappearing  round  the  next  corner,  probably. 
'  *  I  know  it, ' '  says  the  old  man,  * '  I  know  it. 
The  Lord  make  both  me  and  thee  wiser !  ' '  And 
then  he  goes  on  around  the  corner,  chuckling 
over  the  thought  of  how  he  has  outwitted  those 
boys. 

We  are  to  look  at  the  eloquence  of  the  Puritan 
clergy  as  that  of  men  filled  with  what  they 
deemed  a  divine  mission,  filled  with  a  mixture 
of  theology  now  outworn  and  not  now  preached 
in  any  pulpit  in  its  fullness  as  they  preached  it. 
We  can  fancy  them  with  their  limitations  and 
their  purposes,  their  doubts  perhaps,  for  they 
expressed  freely  their  desires,  their  sorrows, 
and  yet  having,  in  their  simple  lives,  such  a 
career  as  we  know.  There  was  no  luxury  for 
them.  They  were  not  very  amply  paid.  That 
ancestor  of  mine  of  whom  it  is  said  that  he 
preached  lies  and  his  doctrine  was  the  doctrine 


or  the  Reign  of  the  Clergy 


of  devils,  had  about  the  highest  salary  I  have 
found  recorded  in  the  colonies.  He  had  one 
hundred  and  sixty  pounds  a  year  in  "  country 
produce,"  with  a  discount  of  twenty  pounds  if 
paid  in  solid  cash,  *  *  solid  cash  ' '  meaning  black 
and  white  wampum  beads  and  bullets,  value  one 
farthing.  But  when  we  see  what  they  did,  I 
think  we  shall  see  that  they  earned  their  salaries. 
That  very  ancestor  of  mine,  in  an  election  ser 
mon,  said  once: 

* '  You  are  to  remember,  my  friends  and 
brethren,  that  our  New  England  was  not 
originally  a  plantation  of  trade,   but  of 
religion.     Let  merchants  and  such  as  are 
making  their  cent  per  cent,  remember 
this.      Let   all  others  that  have  come 
among  us  since  at  sundry  times   bear 
this  in  mind,  that  worldly  end  was  not 
the  aim  of  the  planting  of  New  Eng 
land,  but  religion.     And  if  there  be  a 
man    among   you   who  counts  his  re 
ligion  but  as  twelve,  and 
the    whole  world  as    thir 
teen,    let  such   a   one   re 
member  that  he  has  neither 
the  spirit  of  a  true  New   ^ 
England  man,  nor  yet   of 
a  sincere  Christian. ' ' 


-*    N 


REVOLUTIONARY  ORATORY,  OR 
THE     RISE    OF     THE     LAWYERS 


Revolutionary   Oratory,   or 
the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers. 


T  the  end  of  my  last  lecture  I  left 
New  England  wholesomely  but 
uncomfortably  under  the  absolute 
control  of  the  Puritan  clergy;  and 
the  part  of  the  subject  I  have  to 
present  now  is  to  me  peculiarly  interesting,  be 
cause  it  has  never  been,  so  far  as  I  know,  fairly 
or  fully  discussed  —  the  extraordinary  effect  pro 
duced  by  the  events  of  the  next  hundred  years 
in  transferring  that  control  from  the  clergy  to 
another  class,  the  lawyers,  who  were  for  many 
years  to  exercise  it  in  their  turn. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  see  how,  out  of  the 
early  system  of  our  colleges,  the  older  colleges 
in  the  eastern  colonies,  colleges  which  existed 
practically  for  the  education  of  the  clergy,  there 
came  in  time  the  training  in  other  directions 
which  was  to  enlarge  and  simplify  the  position 
of  affairs  in  the  community  as  a  whole. 

If  you  look  at  the  old  catalogues  —  the  triennial 
and  quinquennial  catalogues  of  Harvard  and  Yale, 
where  all  the  clergy  have  their  names  placed  in 
italics,  you  will  see -that  for  a  hundred  years  those 
colleges  existed  essentially  to  train  clergymen 


34  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

and  that  everything  else  was  secondary.  Those 
who  organized  them  did  not  foresee  that  out  of 
that  training  of  the  clergy  was  to  come  the 
gradual  development  of  other  studies  not  specially 
belonging  to  the  clergy,  from  our  point  of  view, 
but  studies  which  were  urged  on  them  from 
necessity  as  a  part  of  their  duty,  and  which  ulti 
mately  resulted  in  detaching  themselves  and 
producing  special  classes  in  other  directions. 

Professor  Goodale  of  Harvard  University  has 
shown  very  clearly,  for  instance,  how  the  whole 
department  of  medicine  came  up  at  first  as  a  col 
lateral  affair  in  those  colleges,  produced  from 
necessity  in  the  training  of  the  clergy.  Why? 
Because  the  clergy  were  the  physicians  of  their 
parishes.  Thence  the  whole  materia  medica 
gradually  established  itself  in  successive  depart 
ments  of  study,  in  order  that  the  clergy  might 
learn  how  to  be  good  doctors.  And  in  just  the 
same  way,  out  of  the  extraordinary  fact  that  the 
clergy  were  practically  the  lawyers  of  the  people, 
there  came  ultimately  a  separate  race  of  lawyers. 

In  the  diaries  of  that  strange  old  man,  a  most 
picturesque  and  interesting  character  of  the 
Puritan  period,  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  Chief 
Justice  Sewall,  you  find  the  most  singular  exhibi 
tion  of  the  life  of  a  man  who  might  either  be 
regarded  as  something  of  a  clergyman  veneered 
over  with  a  little  law,  or  something  of  a  lawyer 
veneered  over  with  a  good  deal  of  clergy. 

He   was  Chief  Justice  of   Massachusetts.     He 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  35 

was  the  man  of  whom  I  told  you  that  at  his  first 
sermon  he  forgot  his  hour-glass  and  preached 
two  hours  and  a  half,  and  was  not  much  encour 
aged  to  preach  any  more.  But  there  was  nothing 
in  that,  to  prevent  him  from  being  a  good  lawyer, 
it  seems,  and  he  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
law  department  in  the  Massachusetts  colony. 

And  how  did  he  occupy  himself  while  listening 
to  long  debates,  or  apparently  discussing  with 
his  companions  great  legal  problems?  Why,  he 
busied  himself  in  writing  out  little  Scripture 
texts  and  handing  them  round  for  the  nurture  and 
admonition  of  the  other  judges,  who  were  also 
clergymen  veneered  with  a  little  law.  Or  he 
wrote  little  poems  of  a  pious  description  sug 
gested  by  the  lawsuit  that  was  going  on,  or 
perhaps  suggested  by  something  that  had  recently 
happened, —  having  just  attended  a  funeral,  for 
instance,  and  recalling  a  certain  similarity  in  the 
names  of  the  bearers,  he  wrote  them  out  in  this 
couplet : 

"  Two  Sams,  two  Johns  and  one  good  Tom 
Bore  prudent  Mary  to  the  tomb." 

And  thus  the  widow  Coney  was  dismissed. 

And  all  through  Judge  Se wall's  life  that 
same  combination  existed.  In  command  of  a 
military  company  occasionally,  when  the  captain 
was  out  of  the  way  he  offered  the  prayers  when 
the  military  training  began.  He  in  all  ways, 
even  to  the  process  of  making  love  to  three 
successive  widows,  brought  to  bear  the  same 


3 6  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

theological  interest  and  was  ready  with  his  Scrip 
ture  texts  or  his  little  poems ;  only  for  the  advan 
tage  of  the  widows,  each  was  commonly  employed 
to  wrap  up  a  little  piece  of  sugar  candy,  which 
was  a  new-found  delicacy  in  those  days,  and 
answered  in  the  process  of  love-making  to  widows 
the  purpose  of  ice-cream  soda  to  the  women  of 
the  present  day. 

This  was  the  chief  justice  of  the  colony.  And 
when  you  ask  who  the  lawyers  were,  the  answer 
is  that  there  were  no  established  lawyers,  no 
established  and  recognized  attorneys  until  the 
year  1701,  and  that  there  was  no  examination  or 
preparation  required  among  those  for  many  years 
after. 

An  English  lawyer  of  some  learning,  a  Lin 
coln's  Inn  man,  came  out  to  establish  himself  in 
Boston.  He  argued  one  case,  and  argued  it  in 
such  a  thoroughly  unecclesiastical  manner  that 
he  was  never  allowed  to  argue  another,  but 
retired  to  a  small  market  garden  in  Brookline 
where  he  complained  that  he  had  neither  a  house 
to  live  in  nor  a  garden  to  cultivate. 

Of  the  recognized  attorneys  one  quite  distin 
guished  was  a  tailor,  another  was  an  apothecary — 
and  so  on,  there  is  that  absence  of  all  rigor  in  the 
administration  of  justice.  After  the  examinations 
began  in  Massachusetts  the  first  eminent  lawyer 
was  Benjamin  Gridley,  in  1730,  often  called  the 
father  of  the  Boston  bar.  The  clergy,  not  content 
with  acting  as  judges,  or  arguing  cases  if  neces- 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  37 

sary  —  for  they  were  always  welcome  as  attorneys 
—  would  boldly  go  into  lawsuits  in  progress, 
observe  what  was  going  on,  and  if  they  were  not 
pleased  with  the  judge's  decision  would  overrule 
it.  If  they  did  not  like  the  examination  of  the 
witnesses  they  would  examine  them  themselves; 
if  they  did  not  like  the  action  of  the  jury  they 
would  overrule  it  and  pronounce  the  verdict 
themselves. 

It  was  all  a  curious  travesty  of  legal  technical 
ities,  and  one  can  hardly  be  surprised  that  upon 
one  occasion  one  of  these  attorneys  when  a 
witness  having  arrived  late  —  an  old  woman  — 
and  the  court-house  was  crowded,  pointed  out 
to  her  the  seats  where  the  judges  sat  and  the 
stairway  that  led  up  to  them  and  told  her  to  go 
up  there  and  seat  herself  among  the  judges.  And 
when  called  to  account  he  said  that  he  had  always 
been  told  that  that  was  the  place  where  the  old 
women  sat. 

Now,  what  made  the  possibility  of  any  change 
in  all  this  condition  of  affairs?  The  change  came 
from  two  or  three  things.  In  a  general  way  it 
came  from  the  expansion  of  thought,  and  from 
the  expansion  of  settlements  also.  It  was  not 
possible,  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  the  rigor 
of  the  Puritan  theology  should  last  forever ;  and 
it  did  not.  A  greater  variety  of  people  came  as 
settlers,  with  different  opinions,  a  greater 
variety  of  saints,  and  a  tolerable  variety  of  sin 
ners. 


38  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

There  were  clergymen  who,  though  firm  in 
their  own  convictions,  had  no  absolute  faith 
in  the  Westminster  catechism;  and  outside  of 
that  there  were  many  persons  in  whom,  as  time 
went  on,  a  sense  of  humor  began  to  develop,  and 
who  were  unable  to  see  this  strange  Puritan  life 
as  seriously  as  at  first.  There  were  the  Epis 
copal  clergy,  for  instance,  to  deal  with,  who  were 
very  apt  to  be  loyalists,  very  apt  to  be  educated 
men,  and  sometimes  men  who  would  have  their 
jokes  at  the  Puritan  proprieties.  The  Reverend 
Matthew  Byles,  a  loyalist  clergyman  at  Boston, 
at  the  end  of  the  first  hour  on  his  sermon  would 
pay  deference  to  the  habits  of  the  community  by 
having  his  hour-glass  at  his  side  and  turning 
it  over;  but,  he  would  remark  incidentally ,  '*  Now, 
my  hearers,  let  us  take  another  glass. ' '  It  was 
an  innocent  bon  mot  in  its  place  but  perhaps 
somewhat  secular. 

Then  there  was  the  class  of  professional  scoun 
drels  who  developed  themselves  —  the  picturesque 
villains  of  that  early  period.  There  was  Stephen 
Burroughs,  whose  life  has  gone  through  perhaps 
twenty  editions  after  long  intervals  of  time,  and 
who  will  perhaps  live  forever  as  a  curious  exhibi 
tion  of  the  rogue  side  of  life  in  the  Puritan 
period.  Stephen  Burroughs  went  through  the 
country  defrauding  people  and  very  commonly 
wearing  the  garments  of  a  clergyman,  always 
ready  to  preach  or  pray  in  either  sense  of  the 
word.  On  one  occasion,  when  pursued  for  a 


t 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  39 

theft,  he  took  refuge  in  a  haymow.  They  caught 
him  at  last,  and  when  he  pleaded  his  clerical 
character  as  an  excuse  they  said  that  if  he  was  a 
clergyman  he  must  preach  a  sermon  from  the 
haymow  and  let  them  select  the  text.  He 
assented,  and  they  selected  as  the  text:  "Old 
shoes  and  clouted  on  their  feet  "  He  preached 
a  sermon  from  that  text  and  they  let  him  off. 

Those  things  began  to  give  a  little  background 
of  something  else  to  this  habitual  Puritan  consci 
ousness.  And  then  there  gradually  came  up, 
even  in  families,  and  even  in  exceptional  house 
holds,  a  little  levity  of  spirit,  a  little  habit  of 
taking  things  somewhat  differently  from  the  old 
way  in  which  they  were  taken. 

Among  the  Puritan  clergy,  who  generally  — 
unlike  many  of  their  successors  —  had  large 
families  of  daughters,  and  whose  daughters  — 
unlike  many  of  those  of  their  successors  —  were 
generally  all  married,  sometimes  several  times 
over,  there  was  often  a  great  deal  of  marrying 
to  be  done  in  their  own  households.  And  it  was 
etiquette  to  let  the  bride  select  the  text  for  her 
own  wedding  sermon. 

So  when  Parson  Cranch,  of  Milton,  was  to  offici 
ate  in  that  way  for  his  eldest  daughter,  Mary,  she 
cast  down  her  eyes  and  blushed,  we  may  suppose, 
when  called  upon  to  make  the  selection,  and 
chose  for  her  text:  "  Mary  hath  chosen  the  better 
part,  which  shall  not  be  taken  away  from  her. ' ' 
And  it  was  not  taken  away. 


40  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

But  when  her  younger  sister,  named  Abby, 
wished  to  marry  young  Squire  Adams,  christened 
John,  and  he  being  in  various  questionable  prac 
tices —  among  others,  beginning  to  be  an  attor 
ney —  when  he  was  objected  to  by  the  father,  was 
not  well  received  by  the  family,  was  never  even 
invited  to  stay  to  dinner,  she  selected  for  her 
text:  "John  came  neither  eating  bread  nor 
drinking  wine,  and  ye  say  he  hath  a  devil." 
And  yet  Abby  lived  to  be  wife  of  the  first  Presi 
dent  Adams,  and  the  ancestress  of  indefinite 
generations  of  Adamses.  You  will  find  her 
letters  also  among  the  spiciest  products  of  the 
later  Puritan  period. 

Now  all  these  things  tended  to  relax  and 
modify  that  severe  and  strict  rule  of  life  with 
which  the  Puritan  colonies  began.  And  then 
again,  from  another  source  there  came  up  a  series 
of  differences.  The  colonies  increased,  and  so  the 
business  of  the  colonies  increased.  Men  went 
from  one  colony  to  another  to  conduct  lawsuits. 
There  was  no  general  system  of  laws.  Before  a 
general  system  of  laws  had  been  formed  there 
was  great  trouble.  Even  in  New  England  there 
was,  after  a  while,  a  fringe  of  outlying  colonies 
where  the  ancient  reverence  did  not  exist.  There 
was  sent,  on  one  occasion,  down  to  the  settle 
ments  on  the  coast  of  New  Hampshire  and 
Maine  —  fishing  colonies,  fishing  settlements  be 
ing  there  —  a  young  clergyman  of  the  straitest 
description ;  and  he  was  preaching  at  one  of  these 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers 


fishing  settlements,  and  he  said  to  them  that  they 
must  approve  themselves  religious,  because,  he 
said,  "  That  is  the  end  and  aim  of  your  coming 
hither." 

Whereupon  one  young  fisherman  raised  his 
head  from  the  bench  where  he  was  lying  — 
because  in  those  days,  as  at  the  Isle  of  Shoals 
within  my  memory,  the  fishermen  whenever  they 
went  to  church,  all  insisted  in  lying  full-length 
on  the  pews,  as  though  they  were  on  the  thwarts 
of  a  vessel,  or  lying  on  the  rocks;  your  fisherman 
anywhere  likes  to  take  his  Gospel  in  a  horizontal 
position.  When  the  young  clergyman  had  made 
this  statement,  as  I  have  said,  one  young  fellow 
raised  himself  up  and  said : 

* '  The  elder  is  mistaken.  He  thinks  he  is  speak 
ing  to  the  people  of  the  Bay.  Our  chief  aim 
here  is  to  catch  fish,  and  we  do  it." 

Now  that  formation  of  a  more  varied  circle  of 
elements  created  great  additional  difficulty  and 
made  a  demand  for  some  more  positive  law.     I 
have  here  a  remarkable  passage  written  by  a 
young  Virginian,  describing  this  great  complica 
tion   that   came   up  —  in  1701  he   wrote.      He 
describes  the  ex 
traordinary  state 
of  chaos  in  which 
the  colonies  were 
as  regards   their 
relations,       not 
merely  with  the 


VVXVv  ScO--> 

•     N  \?\   ^      "Vv%- 

N        ••'.     *  _     v*        *•         •'V- 


N 


42  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

rest  of  the  world  but  with  one  another.  He  says: 
"It  is  a  great  tmhappiness  that  no  one  can 
tell  what  is  law  and  what  is  not  in  the  planta 
tions.  Some  hold  that  the  law  of  England  is 
chiefly  to  be  respected,  and  where  that  is  deficient 
the  laws  of  the  several  colonies  are  to  take  place. 
Others  are  of  opinion  that  the  laws  of  the  colonies 
are  to  take  the  first  place,  and  that  the  law  of 
England  is  of  force  only  where  they  are  silent. 
Others  there  are  who  contend  for  the  laws  of 
the  colonies  in  conjunction  with  those  that  were 
in  force  in  England  at  the  first  settlement  of  the 
colony,  and  lay  down  that,  as  the  measure  of  our 
obedience,  alleging  that  we  are  not  bound  to  ob 
serve  any  late  acts  of  parliament  in  England  ex 
cept  such  only  where  the  reason  of  the  law  is  the 
same  here  that  it  is  in  England." 

You  see  how  complicated  he  makes  it.  It  is 
as  bad  as  questions  of  imperialism,  as  bad  as 
knowing  what  is  law  in  the  Philippines.  And 
he  goes  on: 

"  But  this  leaving  too  great  a  latitude  to  the 
judge,  some  others  hold,  that  no  late  acts  of 
parliament  of  England  do  bind  the  plantations 
but  those  only  wherein  the  plantations  are 
particularly  named.  Thus  are  we  left  in  the 
dark  in  one  of  the  most  considerable  points  of 
our  rights;  and  the  case  being  so  doubtful,  we 
are  too  often  obliged  to  depend  upon  the  crooked 
cord  of  a  judge's  discretion  in  matters  of  the 
greatest  moment  and  value." 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  43 

This  passage  may  be  found  in  Frothingham's 
*'  Rise  of  the  Republic,"  page  109.  It  is  the 
best  statement  that  I  know,  of  the  state  of  chaos 
into  which  they  were  thrown.  As  a  result  there 
came  to  be  needed  a  new  race  of  men  specially 
trained,  men  who  for  that  purpose  should  come 
to  the  front  and  meet  some  of  these  perplexities 
which  the  clergy  could  not.  Then  all  the  dawn 
ing  anxieties  of  the  revolution  came,  all  the  pre 
liminary  stages  dating  back  long  before  the 
actual  declaration ;  and  it  needed  men  who  were 
trained  to  deal  with  these,  men  who  had  some 
other  training  than  the  ecclesiastical  training  of 
Samuel  Sewall  and  his  kindred,  or  the  training 
of  the  tailors  and  the  apothecaries  who  were 
accustomed  to  argue  cases  in  the  city  courts. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  training  this  body  of 
men  they  had  to  deal  with  a  great  prejudice. 
The  law  was  not  considered,  as  I  told  you,  a 
reputable  profession,  at  least  not  as  compared 
with  the  clerical  profession.  It  is  a  singular  fact 
that  the  three  leaders  of  the  revolution,  in  the 
Massachusetts  colony,  John  Adams,  Sam  Adams, 
and  Oxenbridge  Thatcher,  were  all  trained 
originally  to  be  clergymen,  and  all  afterwards 
determined  to  be  lawyers,  and  get  their  legal 
training  in  addition.  John  Adams  did  it ;  Oxen- 
bridge  Thatcher  did  it.  Sam  Adams's  parents 
held  so  hard  to  the  doctrine  that  the  law  was  a 
disreputable  profession  that  they  never  allowed 
him  to  enter  it.  He  went  into  business,  but 


44  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

before  he  got  through,  mixed  himself  up  with 
legal  questions  more  than  the  two  others  put 
together.  And  what  is  more,  and  what  has  only 
lately  been  brought  out  distinctly,  partly  by  the 
researches  of  my  relative,  Professor  Channing 
of  Harvard,  there  existed  in  the  southern  col 
onies  represented  by  Virginia  very  much  the 
same  feeling,  only  coming  from  a  different 
source. 

It  was  not  a  question  of  church  membership 
or  of  ecclesiastical  training  —  the  southern  colo 
nies  never  troubled  themselves  very  much 
about  those  things  —  but  turned  upon  a  wholly 
different  thing.  The  southern  colonies  were 
based  on  land  ownership ;  the  aim  was  to  build 
up  a  type  of  society  like  the  English  type,  an 
aristocratic  system  of  land-owners  as  in  Eng 
land.  And  these  miscellaneous  men  who,  with 
out  owning  large  estates  or  large  numbers  of 
slaves,  came  forward  to  try  cases  in  court, 
were  regarded  with  the  same  sort  of  suspicion 
which  the  same  class  had  to  meet  in  Massachu 
setts. 

Patrick  Henry,  the  greatest  of  Virginians  for 
the  purpose  for  which  Providence  had  marked 
him  out,  was  always  regarded  by  Jefferson  in 
very  much  the  same  light  in  which  Sam  Adams 
was  by  his  uncles,  who  were  afraid  he  wanted  to 
be  a  lawyer.  Henry  was  regarded  as  a  man 
from  the  people,  an  irregularly  trained  man. 
Jefferson,  you  will  find,  criticises  his  pronuncia- 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  45 

tion  severely.  He  talked  about ' '  yearth  ' '  instead 
of  "earth."  He  said  that  a  man's  "  nateral " 
parts  needed  to  be  improved  by  *  *  eddication. ' ' 
Jefferson  had  traveled  in  Europe  and  talked  with 
cultivated  men  in  other  countries.  He  did  not 
do  that  sort  of  thing,  and  he,  not  being  a  man  of 
the  most  generous  or  candid  nature,  always  tries 
to  make  us  think  that  Patrick  Henry  was  a 
nobody  who  had  very  little  practice.  And  it  was 
not  until  the  admirable  life  of  him  written  for 
the  "  American  Statesmen  "  series  by  my  prede 
cessor  in  this  lectureship,  Moses  Coit  Tyler, 
whose  loss  we  so  greatly  mourn,  that  it  was 
clearly  made  out  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  had  an 
immense  legal  practice  and  was  wonderfully  suc 
cessful  in  a  great  variety  of  cases. 

So,  both  North  and  South,  there  was  this  anta 
gonism  to  this  new  class  coming  forward;  and 
yet  that  new  class  stepped  forward  and  took  the 
leadership  of  the  American  Revolution.  Not 
that  the  clergy  were  false  to  their  duty.  They 
did  their  duty  well.  There  is  a  volume  —  I  know 
what  good  libraries  you  have  in  Cleveland,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  University,  and  therefore  I 
mention  special  books  more  freely  —  there  is  a 
book  by  J.  Wingate  Thornton  called  "  The  Clergy 
of  the  American  Revolution,"  which  contains  an 
admirable  and  powerful  series  of  sermons  by 
those  very  clergymen  whom  I  have  criticized  for 
their  limitations.  They  did  their  part  admir 
ably,  and  yet  one  sees  as  time  goes  on  that  the 


46  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

lawyers  are  taking  matters  into  their  own  hands. 
But  the  change  was  not  always  a  benefit  to  the 
style  of  oratory.  It  was  a  period  of  somewhat 
formal  style;  it  was  not  a  period  when  the 
English  language  was  reaching  to  its  highest 
sources.  You  will  be  surprised  to  find,  for 
instance,  in  the  books  and  addresses  of  that 
period  how  little  Shakspeare  is  quoted,  how  much 
oftener  much  inferior  poets.  In  Edmund  Burke's 
orations  he  quotes  Shakspeare  very  little;  and 
Edmund  Burke's  orations  are  interesting  espe 
cially  for  this,  that  they  are  not  probably  the 
original  addresses  which  he  gave,  are  literature 
rather  than  oratory,  and  are  now  generally  sup 
posed  to  have  been  written  out  afterwards.  What 
we  know  is  that  they  did  not  hold  their  audiences. 
Edmund  Burke  was  known  in  parliament  as  the 
"dinner-bell,"  because  as  soon  as  he  got  up  to 
speak  the  hungry  Englishmen  got  up  and  went 
out  to  take  their  dinners.  Goldsmith  said  of 
him: 

"  Here  lies  our  good  Edmund,  whose  genius  was  such, 
That  you  scarcely  can  praise  it  or  blame  it  too  much ; 
Who,  too  deep  for  his  hearers,  still  went  on  refining, 
And  thought  of  convincing  while    they    thought   of 
dining. ' ' 

You  know  Englishmen  take  their  dinner  in  the 
midst  of  the  parliamentary  sittings,  and  often 
parliament  does  not  adjourn  at  all  so  long  as 
there  is  a  member  left  who  is  not  hungry. 

Like    Burke    most    of    the    orators    of     that 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  47 

period  have  a  certain  formal  style.  When  all  is 
said  and  done,  the  clergy  got  a  certain  pithiness 
from  that  terrific  habit  they  had  of  going  back 
every  little  while  and  pinning  down  their  thought 
with  a  text.  One  English  clergyman  of  the 
period  compared  his  text  to  a  horse-block  on 
which  he  ascended  when  he  wished  to  mount  his 
horse,  and  then  he  rode  his  horse  as  long  as  he 
wished  and  might  or  might  not  come  back  to 
that  horse-block  again.  Therefore  we  see  in  the 
oratory  of  that  time  a  certain  formality. 

Moreover,  in  the  absence  of  the  modern  reporter, 
we  really  do  not  know  exactly  what  was  said  in  the 
greatest  speeches  of  that  day.  The  modern 
reporter,  whose  aim  is  to  report  everything  that 
is  said,  and  who  generally  succeeds  (I  hope  it  will 
not  be  so  in  this  particular  case)  in  putting  in  a 
great  many  fine  things  which  haven't  occurred 
to  the  orators  —  the  modern  reporter  was  not 
known,  and  we  have  but  very  few  descriptions 
even  of  the  great  orations.  One  of  these,  fortu 
nately,  we  have  from  a  very  able  source  —  John 
Adams.  He  describes  to  us  the  address  of  James 
Otis  on  what  was  called  "  writs  of  assistance," 
which  was  merely  an  old-fashioned  form  of  search 
warrant.  It  was  seventeen  years  before  the  revo 
lution  broke  out ;  and  in  his  old  age  he  gave  a 
description  of  it,  done  in  a  spirit  of  generosity 
and  freedom  which  does  not  belong  always  to  his 
earlier  days.  He  says,  writing  in  the  year  1817, 
and  looking  back  more  than  half  a  century : 


48  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

"  Whenever  you  shall  find  a  painter,  male 
or  female,  I  pray  yon  to  suggest  a  scene  and 
subject."  That  is  not,  by  the  way,  putting 
it  very  near,  because  you  may  remember  perhaps 
that  John  Adams  said  once  that  there  were  no 
painters  or  sculptors  in  America  and  he  hoped 
there  never  would  be ;  but  he  has  got  so  far  in 
his  old  age  as  to  imagine  what  a  painter  might 
do,  and  he  says: 

**  The  scene  is  in  the  council  chamber  of 
the  old  town  house  in  Boston.  The  date  is 
the  month  of  February,  1761.  That  council 
chamber  was  as  remarkable  an  apartment  and 
more  so,  than  the  house  of  lords  or  house 
of  parliament  in  Great  Britain,  or  that  in  Phila 
delphia  in  which  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  signed  in  1776.  In  this  chamber,  near  the 
fire,  were  seated  five  judges  with  Lieutenant- 
Governor  Hutchinson  at  their  head  as  chief 
justice,  all  in  their  new  fresh  robes  of  scarlet 
English  cloth,  in  their  broad  bands  and  immense 
judicial  wigs.  In  this  chamber  were  seated,  at  a 
long  table,  all  the  barristers  of  Boston  and  its 
neighboring  county  of  Middlesex,  in  their  gowns, 
bands  and  tie-wigs.  They  were  not  seated  on 
ivory  chairs,  but  their  dress  was  more  solemn 
and  more  pompous  than  that  of  the  Roman  senate 
when  the  Gauls  broke  in  upon  them.  In  a  corner 
of  the  room  must  be  placed  "  —  I  ask  your  special 
attention  to  this  sentence  —  "In  a  corner  of  the 
room  must  be  placed  wit,  sense,  imagination, 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  49 

genius,  pathos,  reason,  prudence,  eloquence, 
learning,  science,  and  immense  reading,  hung  by 
the  shoulders  on  two  crutches,  covered  with  a 
cloth  greatcoat,  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Pratt,"  — 
Mr.  Pratt  was  the  great  lawyer  of  Boston  in  that 
day  —  "  who  had  been  solicited  on  both  sides  but 
would  engage  on  neither,  being  about  to  leave 
Boston  forever  as  Chief  Justice  of  New  York. 
Two  portraits,  at  more  than  full-length,  of  King 
Charles  II.  and  King  James  II.  were  hung  on  the 
most  conspicuous  side  of  the  apartment.  If  my 
young  eyes  or  old  memory  hath  not  deceived  me, 
these  were  the  finest  pictures  I  have  seen.  The 
colors  of  their  long  flowing  robes  and  their  royal 
ermine  were  almost  glowing,  the  figures  the  most 
noble  and  graceful,  the  features  most  distinct 
and  characteristic;  far  superior  to  those  of  the 
king  and  queen  of  France  in  the  senate  chamber 
of  congress.  I  believe  they  were  Van  Dyck's. " 
Those  pictures  have  long  since  disappeared;  no 
one  knows  exactly  what  became  of  them.  They 
were  probably  sent  back  to  England  at  the  time 
of  the  revolution. 

44  Now  for  the  actors  and  performers.  Otis 
was  a  flame  of  fire ;  with  a  promptitude  of  clas 
sical  allusion,  a  depth  of  research,  a  rapid  sum 
mary  of  historical  events  and  dates,  a  profusion 
of  legal  authorities,  a  prophetic  glare  of  his  eyes 
into  futurity,  and  a  rapid  torrent  of  impetuous 
eloquence,  he  hurried  away  all  before  him. 

"American  independence  was  then  and  there 


50  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

born.  The  seeds  of  patriots  and  heroes  to  de 
fend  the  vigorous  youth  were  then  and  there  sown. 
Every  man  of  that  immense  crowded  audience 
appeared  to  me  to  go  away,  as  I  did,  ready  to 
take  arms  against  writs  of  assistance.  Then  and 
there  was  the  first  scene  of  the  first  act  of  opposi 
tion  to  the  arbitrary  claims  of  Great  Britain. 
Then  and  there  the  child  Independence  was  born. 
In  fifteen  years  —  that  is,  in  1776  —  he  grew  up 
to  manhood  and  declared  himself  free." 

That  you  will  find  in  Thornton's  "  Pulpit  of  the 
American  Revolution,"  at  page  114;  and  also 
in  the  tenth  volume  of  John  Adams's  works.  I 
think  you  will  agree  that  James  Otis  must  have 
been  eloquent  indeed  to  inspire  an  impression  so 
permanent  in  the  mind  of  the  aged  John  Adams, 
who  in  his  earlier  years  had  been  ordinarily  most 
bitter  in  his  criticism  against  any  one  who  was 
or  sought  to  be  a  rival. 

That  was  one  of  the  great  speeches,  perhaps 
one  of  the  two  great  speeches  of  the  Revolution. 
The  other  was  that  speech  of  Patrick  Henry, 
which  probably  has  been  committed  to  memory 
and  recited  by  more  schoolboys  than  any  other 
speech  ever  delivered  in  America,  and  which 
brought  together  New  England  and  Virginia  in 
one  common  admiration  for  its  source.  You  will 
remember  some  of  the  phases  of  it : 

"  It  is  in  vain,  sir,  to  extenuate  the  matter. 
Gentlemen  may  cry  *  Peace,  peace, '  but  there  is 
no  peace ;  the  war  has  actually  begun.  The  next 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  5 1 

gale  that  sweeps  from  the  north  will  bring  to  our 
ears  the  crash  of  resounding  arms.  Our  brethren 
are  already  in  the  field  —  why  stand  we  here  idle? 
Is  life  so  dear  or  peace  so  sweet  as  to  be  pur 
chased  at  the  price  of  chains  and  slavery?  Forbid 
it,  Almighty  God!  I  know  not  what  course 
others  may  take,  but  as  for  me,  give  me  liberty, 
or  give  me  death ! ' ' 

One  of  the  men,  John  Roane,  who  heard  that 
speech,  has  recorded  it  in  all  its  points  of  elo 
quence.  He  has  so  described  it,  perhaps  with 
some  aid  from  the  imagination,  that  we  almost 
see  as  well  as  hear  it  in  passing. 

'*  When  he  said,"  writes  Roane,  "when  he 
said,  '  Is  life  so  dear  or  peace  so  sweet '  he  stood 
in  the  attitude  of  a  condemned  galley-slave, 
loaded  with  fetters,  awaiting  his  doom.  His 
form  was  bowed,  his  wrists  were  crossed,  his 
manacles  were  almost  visible  as  he  stood  like  an 
embodiment  of  helplessness  and  agony.  After  a 
solemn  pause  he  raised  his  eyes  and  chained 
hands  toward  heaven  and  prayed  in  words  and 
tones  that  thrilled  every  heart,  *  Forbid  it, 
Almighty  God ! '  He  then  turned  toward  the 
timid  loyalists  of  the  house,  who  were  quaking 
with  terror  at  the  idea  of  the  consequence  of 
participating  in  proceedings  which  would  be 
visited  with  the  penalties  of  treason  by  the  British 
crown;  and  he  slowly  bent  his  form  yet  nearer 
to  the  earth  and  said :  *  I  know  not  what  course 
others  may  take, '  and  he  accompanied  the  words 


52  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

with  his  hands  crossed,  while  he  seemed  to  be 
weighed  down  with  additional  chains.  The  man 
appeared  to  be  transformed  into  an  oppressed, 
heart-broken  and  helpless  felon.  After  remain 
ing  in  this  posture  of  humiliation  long  enough 
to  impress  the  imagination  he  arose  proudly  and 
exclaimed,  '  But  as  for  me, '  and  the  words  hissed 
through  his  clenched  teeth,  while  his  body  was 
thrown  back,  and  every  muscle  and  tendon  was 
strained  against  the  fetters  which  bound  him, 
and  with  his  countenance  strained  with  agony 
and  rage  he  looked  for  a  moment  like  Laocoon  in 
a  death  struggle  with  coiling  serpents ;  then  with 
loud  clear  tones  he  cried,  4  Give  me  liberty,  or 
give  me  death!  '  and  electrified  the  assembly. 
It  was  not  a  prayer,  but  a  stern  demand  which 
would  submit  to  no  refusal  or  delay.  The  sound 
of  his  voice,  as  he  spoke  these  memorable  words, 
was  like  that  of  a  Spartan  paean  on  the  field  of 
Platsea." 

It  cannot  be  said  that  we  do  not  know  some 
thing  of  what  the  oratory  of  the  Revolution  was, 
after  these  descriptions.  In  modern  times  we 
should  have  the  address  reported ;  in  the  hands 
of  a  very  good  reporter  we  should  have  inter 
polated  any  questions  that  followed  or  that  inter 
rupted,  any  applause,  any  expressions  of  dissent. 
But  here,  not  having  that,  we  have  a  description 
by  a  person  who  saw  it  and  heard  it  all. 

In  seeing  this  transition  thus  completed  from 
the  domain  of  the  clergy  to  the  power  of  the 


or  the^Rise  of  the  Lawyers  53 

lawyers,  which  certainly  if  it  does  not  still 
last,  lasted  up  to  the  time  of  the  anti-slavery 
movement  and  the  great  reforms  of  the  last  gen 
eration,  we  are  led  to  ask,  was  it  on  the  whole  a 
loss  or  a  gain?  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  doubt 
it  was  a  gain ;  at  least  that  it  came  nearer  to  a 
perfectly  truthful  and  solid  basis. 

This  was  never  perhaps  stated  so  well  as  when, 
in  answer  to  a  certain  point  raised  by  Mr.  Master 
Jewett  of  Baliol  College  —  addressed  officially 
as  **  Mr.  Master,"  as  we  say  **  Mr.  President"  — 
he  was  discussing  with  another  clergyman  the 
comparative  power  of  the  judge  and  the  bishop. 
The  other  clergyman  said : 

"  Of  course  the  bishop's  power  is  greater. 
The  power  of  the  judge  does  not  go  beyond 
this  —  that  he  can  say  to  a  sinner,  '  You 
shall  be  hanged ' ;  but  the  bishop  can  go  a 
step  further  and  say  to  him,  '  You  shall  be 
damned. '  ' ' 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Master  Jewett,  "but  we 
must  remember,  after  all,  that  when  the  judge 
says  to  the  man,  'You  shall  be  hanged,'  the 
man  is  hanged ! ' ' 

In  talking  of  the  lawyers  I  must  not  now  pass 
down  to  the  present  time,  further  than  this,  to 
speak  of  two  modern  lawyers  who  so  greatly 
commanded  the  profession  by  the  power  of 
genius,  and  often,  not  always,  by  the  power  of 
personal  courage  and  self-devotion,  that  they 
may  be  regarded  as  the  outcome  or  remote  devel- 


54  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

opment  of  that  second  stage  of  American  history 
which  I  have  tried  to  portray. 

It  happened  to  me,  when  I  was  in  college,  to 
be  once  on  some  business  at  an  office  on  State 
street  in  Boston,  then  as  now  the  central  busi 
ness  street  of  the  place,  in  a  second-story  office 
where  there  were  a  number  of  young  men 
writing  busily  at  their  desks.  Presently  one  of 
the  youths,  passing  by  accident  across  the  room, 
stopped  suddenly  and  said: 

"  There  is  Daniel  Webster!  " 

In  an  instant  every  desk  in  that  room  was 
vacated,  every  pane  in  every  window  was  filled 
with  a  face  looking  out,  and  I,  hastening  up 
behind  them,  found  it  difficult  to  get  a  view  of 
the  street  so  densely  had  they  crowded  round  it. 
And  once  looking  out  I  saw  all  up  and  down  the 
street,  in  every  window  I  could  see,  just  the 
same  mass  of  eager  faces  behind  the  windows. 
Those  faces  were  all  concentrated  on  a  certain 
figure,  a  farmer-like,  sunburned  man  who  stood, 
roughly  clothed,  with  his  hands  behind  him, 
speaking  to  no  one,  looking  nowhere  in  particu 
lar;  waiting,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  for  nothing, 
with  broad  shoulders  and  heavy  muscles,  and  the 
head  of  a  hero  above.  Such  a  brow,  such 
massive  formation,  such  magnificent  black  eyes, 
such  straight  black  eyebrows  I  had  never  seen 
before. 

That  man,  it  appeared,  was  Daniel  Webster !  I 
saw  people  go  along  the  street  sidling  along 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  55 

past  him,  looking  up  at  him  as  if  he  were  the 
Statue  of  Liberty  Enlightening  the  World  in 
New  York  harbor.  Nobody  knew  what  he 
wanted,  it  never  was  explained;  he  may  have 
been  merely  waiting  for  some  companion  to  go 
fishing.  But  there  he  was,  there  he  stands  in 
my  memory.  I  don't  know  what  happened  after 
wards,  or  how  those  young  men  ever  got  back  to 
their  desks — if  they  ever  did. 

For  me,  however,  that  figure  was  revealed  by 
one  brief  duplicate  impression,  which  came  in  a 
few  months  afterwards  when  I  happened  to  be 
out  in  Brookline,  a  suburb  of  Boston,  where 
people  used  to  drive  then,  as  they  drive  now,  on 
summer  afternoons  for  afternoon  tea — only,  after 
noon  tea  not  having  been  invented,  they  drove 
out  to  their  neighbors'  houses  for  fruit  or  a  cup 
of  chocolate. 

You  have  heard  Boston  perhaps  called  the 
"Hub  of  the  universe."  A  lady,  not  a  Bos- 
tonian,  once  said  that  if  Boston  were  the  hub 
of  the  universe,  Brookline  ought  to  be  called 
the  "Sub-hub."  In  the  "sub-hub"  I  was  sit 
ting  in  the  house  of  a  kinsman  who  had  a  beau 
tiful  garden;  who  was  the  discoverer,  in  fact, 
of  the  Boston  nectarine  which  all  the  world  came 
to  his  house  to  taste.  I  heard  voices  in  the  draw 
ing-room  and  went  in  there.  And  there  I  saw 
again  before  me  the  figure  of  that  day  on  State 
street,  but  it  was  the  figure  of  a  man  with  a 
beamingly  good-natured  face,  seated  in  a  solid 


56  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

chair  brought  purposely  to  accommodate  his 
weight,  sitting  there  with  the  simple  culinary 
provision  of  a  cup  of  chocolate  in  his  hand. 

It  so  happened  that  the  great  man,  the  god 
like  Daniel,  as  the  people  used  to  call  him,  had 
expressed  the  very  mortal  wish  for  a  little  more 
sugar  in  his  chocolate;  and  I,  if  you  please, 
was  the  fortunate  youth  who,  passing  near  him, 
was  selected  as  the  Ganymede  to  bring  to  him 
the  refreshment  desired.  I  have  felt  ever  since 
that  I,  at  least,  was  privileged  to  put  one  drop  of 
sweetness  into  the  life  of  that  great  man,  a  life 
very  varied  and  sometimes  needing  refreshment. 
And  I  have  since  been  given  by  my  classmates 
to  understand  —  I  find  they  recall  it  to  this  day  — 
that  upon  walking  through  the  college  yard  for 
a  week  or  two  after  that  opportunity,  I  carried 
my  head  so  much  higher  than  usual  as  to  awaken 
an  amount  of  derision  which  undoubtedly,  if  it 
had  been  at  West  Point,  would  have  led  to  a 
boxing  match. 

That  was  Daniel  Webster,  one  of  the  two  great 
lawyers  of  Boston  —  I  might  almost  say — I  might 
quite  say — of  the  American  bar  at  that  time.  If 
I  have  spoken  too  largely  in  proportion  of  those 
from  my  own  part  of  the  country,  you  must 
remember  that  I  am  speaking  now  of  the  earlier 
days;  and  when  I  come,  in  my  next  address,  to 
speak  of  the  reformers,  I  shall  necessarily  cover 
a  wider  field.  But  I  must  mention  one  other 
who  for  his  effect,  at  least,  and  for  something  in 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  57 

his  genius  may  be  classed  with  Webster.  With 
less  solidity  of  power  he  had,  on  the  other  hand, 
a  more  consistent  brilliancy. 

We  have  at  the  Court  of  St.  James  a  gentle 
man  known  to  you  all,  under  the  name  of  Choate, 
whom  you  might  recognize  less  easily  if  you 
heard  him  mentioned,  as  he  often  is,  by  ad 
miring  Englishmen,  as  "  Mr.  Cho-a-te*. "  "  Mr. 
Cho-a-te* ' '  is  the  nephew  of  the  great  barrister 
of  his  age,  Rufus  Choate.  And  it  is  a  singular 
fact  that  the  whole  physique,  the  whole  aspect  of 
that  great  lawyer  was  so  un- Saxon,  so  distinctly 
suggestive  of  southern  Europe  that  the  Italian 
ized  pronunciation  of  his  name  hardly  seems  in 
appropriate. 

He  and  Lord  Tennyson  are  the  only  two  men 
I  have  seen,  of  English  blood  who  were  abso 
lutely  un-English  in  looks.  Any  one  who  has 
seen  Lord  Tennyson  knows  that  in  him  you 
beheld  something  remote  from  the  neat,  well- 
tailored,  well-trimmed,  well-valeted  bearing  of 
the  average  educated  Englishman.  You  saw  a 
tall  lank  figure  with  very  dark  complexion,  long 
features,  tangled  black  hair,  tangled  mustache 
and  beard;  in  all  respects  suggesting  rather 
some  imperfectly  tamed  Sicilian  bandit  or  some 
partially  converted  Carthusian  monk,  than  a  sub 
stantial  Englishman  and  a  man  of  property. 
Somewhat  the  same  it  was  with  Rufus  Choate. 

He  had  the  darkness,  the  tangled  hair,  eyes 
of  unfathomable  depth  and  sadness,  and  instead 


58  Revolutionary  Oratory, 

of  the  tangled  beard  and  mustache  he  had  a 
long,  anxious  face,  as  if  the  woes  of  a  hundred 
clients  were  represented  there.  And  the  curious 
thing  about  it,  in  addition,  is  that  here  was  a  man 
born  of  the  unmixed  blood  of  Massachusetts 
peasants,  so  far  as  they  were  peasants  —  nay 
rather,  common  people,  common  farmers  in  Essex 
County  where  his  kindred  still  remain,  a  race  of 
simple  ways.  And  yet  from  among  them  there 
had  come  this  beautiful,  picturesque  youth  and 
this  impressive,  fascinating  personality.  And 
another  strange  thing  which  went  with  that 
was,  that  with  all  this  romantic  and  ideal  side  to 
him,  he  could  yet  wind  the  juries  of  Essex  County 
round  his  fingers  while  he  was  lavishing  all  his 
wealth  of  phraseology  upon  their  heads. 

Here  was  a  man  who,  on  one  occasion  while 
defending  a  sea  captain  on  the  charge  of  starv 
ing  his  crew,  would  bring  in  the  books  kept  by 
the  man  and  read  aloud  in  his  deep,  solemn 
tones  the  number  of  barrels  of  beans,  the  number 
of  pounds  of  pork  or  of  herrings,  and  coming  to 
the  climax  at  last  pin  his  dark  eyes  upon  the 
jury  and  say, 

"  And,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  he  fed  that 
ungrateful  crew  upon  that  luxurious  esculent 
of  the  tropics  —  squash ! ' '  And  not  a  man 
would  smile,  and  every  man  would  look  at  his 
fellow-jurymen  as  if  now  they  had  got  to  the 
depth  of  a  murder  trial. 

In  those    days  they    used  to  publish   in   the 


or  the  Rise  of  the  Lawyers  59 

Boston  Post,  which  was  the  funny  paper  of  Boston 
then  —  they  had  a  funny  paper  then  —  and  it  used 
to  put  in  two  columns,  "  Poetry  by  Mr.  Choate," 
"  Prose  by  the  Witness."  For  instance  the 
famous  Tirrell  murder  trial.  There  would  be 
first  this  passage : 

"Poetry,  by  Mr.  Choate:  Down  to  that 
fatal  Monday  evening,  gentlemen  of  the  jury, 
when  the  client's  last  lingering  hope  flick 
ered  like  a  candle  and  went  out. ' ' 

And  then  you  would  look  in  the  next  column 
and  you  would  see  the  prose  by  the  witness: 
"  Wai,  all  I  know  is  that  I  come  into  the  room, 
and  there  the  first  thing  I  sot  eyes  on  was  Al. 
Tirrell  a-sitting  in  his  chair,  and  he  was  cocked 
up  ag'in  the  corner  and  he  was  crying.  And 
says  I,  '  What's  the  matter,  Al.  ? '  And  says  he, 
*  I'm  afraid  I've  run  ag'in  a  snag.'  "  That  was 
the  "  Prose  by  the  Witness."  And  Mr.  Choate 
generally  carried  the  day,  whether  by  the  sorrow 
and  tears  of  Tirrell  in  the  one  case,  or  by  the 
provision  of  the  luxuriant  esculent  of  the  tropics 
in  the  other.  (Applause.) 


ANTI-SLAVERY    AND 
LYCEUM    ORATORY. 


An ti- Slavery  and  Lyceum 
Oratory. 

HAVE  spoken,  in  the  two  previous 
lectures,  of  two  very  marked  periods 
in  the  development  of  American 
oratory,  and  have  tried  to  make 
it  clear  from  what  sources  the 
modification  came.  The  first  of  my  lec 
tures,  you  will  remember,  bore  reference 
to  the  Colonial  period,  or  what  I  called 
"The  Reign  of  the  Clergy,"  when  all 
public  speaking,  like  all  else,  was  under  the 
controlling  influence  of  a  strange  ecclesiastical 
tradition.  I  then  explained  to  you  how,  with 
the  approach  of  the  American  Revolution, 
there  came  from  various  sources  a  transfer  of 
this  leadership,  which  took  the  form  of  what 
I  ventured  to  call  "The  Rise  of  the  Law 
yers.  ' ' 

And  I  pointed  out  to  you  toward  the  close  of  the 
last  lecture  that,  while  great  gain  ensued  in  some 
respects  from  this  transformation,  it  was  not 
exclusively  an  advantage;  that  the  habits  of 
speech  at  that  period  were  florid,  overloaded  with 
words,  not  simple  and  direct,  were  strongly,  for 
instance,  under  the  control  of  writers  like  Dr. 


64  Anti-Slavery 

Johnson  in  literature,  and  under  a  similar  con 
trol  in  what  related  to  oratory.  So  that,  after 
all,  there  was  substituted  a  somewhat  artificial 
style.  And  when,  coming  down  later  than  the 
period  I  actually  designated,  I  portrayed  one  or 
two  ripened  specimens  of  that  tendency  toward 
the  reign  of  the  lawyers  and  described  two  of  the 
greatest  among  them  at  that  period  —  Webster 
and  Choate  —  I  recognized  in  both  of  those,  that 
there  was  to  some  extent  an  overladen  style  in 
the  one  and  in  the  other  a  style  often  heavy, 
though  rising  at  its  highest  points  to  extraordi 
nary  power. 

We  are  now  to  contemplate  a  period  when, 
from  obvious  influences,  there  came  a  modifica 
tion  of  this  more  ornate  style;  a  more  direct, 
more  simple  and  consequently  more  powerful 
form  of  oratory.  This  was  the  result  of  the 
necessity  of  dealing  with  great  public  questions 
and  with  great  moral  reforms.  The  floridity  of 
style  at  that  period  is  described  in  a  phrase  from 
a  book  celebrated  in  its  day,  published  in  the 
year  1828,  and  described  by  the  first  of  English 
essayists  at  that  period,  Hazlitt,  as  being  the 
most  important  book  yet  produced  in  America ; 
a  book  containing  the  travels  and  observations 
of  President  D  wight  of  Yale  College  going  through 
the  New  England  states  and,  to  some  extent,  the 
beginnings  of  the  Western  States,  and  stating 
what  he  found  there,  frankly  and  freely  —  with 
that  frankness  and  freedom  which  college  presi- 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  6j 

dents  commonly  showed,  in  those  days  at  least, 
in  dealing  with  other  people. 

He  speaks  of  hearing  one  or  two  addresses  in 
Boston,  and  speaks  of  them  as  being  given  in  what 
is  called  "  the  Boston  style  —  a  florid  style,"  thus 
putting  it  on  record,  and  I  think  with  entire 
truth,  that  that  style  prevailed  at  that  period.  If, 
for  instance,  you  should  read  —  if  anybody  could 
do  it  in  full  —  the  lectures  upon  "  Rhetoric  and 
Oratory  "  given  by  John  Quincy  Adams  at  Har 
vard  University  at  that  time,  you  would  be 
astonished  at  the  immense  length  of  those 
lectures  —  two  stout  volumes,  a  record  of  repeti 
tion,  of  verbiage,  surprising  you  by  the  number 
of  words  that  it  takes  him  to  say  a  simple  thing. 

Now  the  great  step,  after  all,  toward  making 
oratory  human  is  tested,  in  a  degree,  by  the 
shortness  of  the  words.  As  long  as  words  are 
polysyllabic  and  multitudinous  you  may  reach  a 
special  class,  but  you  don't  reach  the  human  heart. 

I  remember,  myself,  one  commencement  day, 
after  the  Civil  War,  when  a  once  eminent  liter 
ary  man  in  Boston,  George  S.  Hilliard,  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  of  the  elder  type  of  men, 
who  had  been  rather  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
college  during  the  war-time,  came  back  at  last 
and  made  an  address  at  the  commencement  din 
ner.  Dr.  Edward  Hammond  Clarke,  of  Boston, 
a  classmate  of  mine,  sat  beside  me  as  he  heard 
this  address,  and  he  turned  to  me  at  the  end  and 
said: 


66  Anti-Slavery 

"  It  is  a  very  strange  thing.  I  can  remem 
ber  the  time  when  that  address  would  have 
seemed  to  me  the  height  of  eloquence,  and  yet 
now  it  makes  no  impression  upon  me  at  all."  I 
said  to  him, 

"  That  is  just  the  feeling  that  has  been  in  my 
mind." 

When  afterwards  Dr.  Clarke  himself  was  called 
upon,  a  man  not  then  habitually  a  public  speaker, 
he  simply  began  and  went  through  a  per 
fectly  straightforward,  up-and-down  description 
of  the  present  condition  and  prospects  of  the 
medical  school  of  the  university,  and  swept  all 
hearers  with  sympathy.  Everybody  listened  to 
him,  everybody  delighted  in  the  statement  he 
made. 

The  period  of  the  shortening  of  words  and  the 
directness  of  address  had  come.  It  had  always 
come  when  the  learned  man  of  that  day  was  face 
to  face  with  the  plain  man,  who  spoke  simply  the 
words  that  he  meant  and  said  the  thing  in  the 
shortest  way. 

There  used  to  be  a  story  in  my  college,  in  my 
childhood,  of  the  first  mayor  of  Cambridge.  I 
notice  that  cities  are  very  apt  to  take  for  their 
first  mayor  a  learned  man,  a  college-bred  man  at 
any  rate.  Sometimes  experience  brings  them 
nearer  to  a  man  of  the  people,  at  the  end,  than 
the  old-fashioned  college  man  was. 

Our  first  mayor  was  a  college  man.  He  did  his 
duties  faithfully  and  was  a  man  of  great  dignity. 


and  Lyceum  Oratory 


There  came  one  night  an  alarm  of  fire  just  as 
he  was  going  to  bed.  The  old  gentleman  felt 
that  his  duty  was  there.  He  got  up,  put  on  his 
fur  coat  and  his  fur  cap,  took  his  gold-headed 
cane  in  his  hand  and  walked  manfully  in  the 
direction  of  the  fire.  As  he  came  near  he  found 
a  great  tumult  going  on,  people  running  about 
the  street,  and  at  last  a  man  came  running  past 
him  with  a  pair  of  old-fashioned  fire-buckets  in 
his  hands.  Mayor  Green  stopped  and  planted 
his  gold-headed  cane  in  the  street  and  said : 

"  Can   you  tell  me,   my   friend,  the   probable 
origin  of  this  alarming  conflagration?  " 

*  *  Sot,  I  guess ! ' '  said  the  man,  and  ran  on  with 
his  fire-buckets. 

There  you  have  the  condensation,  and  there 
you  have  the  extreme.  And  when  you  got  some 
of  that  monosyllabic  quality  into  public  speak 
ing,  you  came  in  contact  with  real  things,  and 
handled  them  in  a  real  manner.  The 
monosyllabic  period  did  not  come  from 
any  book,  into  New  England,  into  the 
United  States.  It  did  not  come  from 
any  preconceived  theory  of  method. 
It  came,  one  may  say,  when  a  hitherto 
unknown  young  man  took  his  old- 
fashioned  printing-press  and  moved  it 
up  from  Newburyport  to  Boston,  started 
the  anti-slavery  movement,  and  began 
a  newspaper  called  The  Boston  Libera 
tor.  It  was  done  so  obscurely  that  when 


o 


68  Anti-Slavery 

he  got  into  trouble  with  the  genteel  part  of  the 
population,  and  the  mayor  went  to  hunt  up  the 
printing-office  he  found  it  difficult  to  discover  it. 
It  was  in  an  obscure  part  of  the  city.  The  young 
man  was  still  obscurer,  but  he  was  definitely  a 
man  with  a  purpose.  He  brought  that  purpose 
with  him;  he  brought  his  cause  with  him. 
People  gathered  around  him  instinctively.  He 
was  trained  on  the  Bible;  he  was  full  of  Bible 
texts  to  the  end  of  his  life.  He  became  very 
heretical  in  his  views  of  the  Bible,  but  the  more 
heretical  he  was,  the  more  he  quoted  it.  And 
always,  from  beginning  to  end,  he  said  what  he 
wanted  to  say  very  plainly. 

I  spoke  of  Dr.  Johnson  just  now.  There  is  a 
fact  which  illustrates  very  well  that  when  the 
great  Dr.  Johnson  got  to  his  highest  point  and 
did  his  best  work  he  adopted  quite  a  different 
style.  Some  of  you  have  encountered  his  high- 
water  mark  in  the  books  of  extracts,  the  time 
when  he,  having  been  finally  flattered  and 
approached  by  the  Earl  of  Chesterfield  who  had 
snubbed  and  repelled  him  when  he  was  an  un 
known  youth,  when  he  wrote  his  answer  to  this 
gentleman's  offer  of  assistance  and  he  says  to 
him,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  brief  letter: 

**  The  notice  that  you  have  been  pleased  to  take 
of  my  humble  labors,  had  it  been  early,  would  have 
been  kind.  As  it  is,  it  has  been  delayed  until  I  am 
old  and  cannot  enjoy  it,  till  I  am  solitary  and  cannot 
impart  it,  till  I  am  known  and  do  not  want  it." 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  69 

That  letter  has  always  been  celebrated  for  the 
concentration,  in  a  series  of  vigorous  words,  of 
the  life  and  emotion  of  a  strong  man,  who  in  the 
less  serious  affairs  of  life  had  dealt  in  poly 
syllables. 

And  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  when  you  read  about 
Garrison's  early  history  —  he  had  never  perhaps 
erred  in  the  other  direction  —  we  find  him  always 
setting  forth  on  that  plane  of  perfectly  direct 
statement  which  he  always  followed.  When  he 
went,  at  the  beginning  of  his  movement,  to  con 
sult  with  old  Dr.  Beecher,  and  Dr.  Beecher 
declined  to  take  up  the  anti-slavery  enterprise, 
because,  he  said,  he  had  already  too  many  irons 
in  the  fire,  "  Then,  Dr.  Beecher,"  said  Garrison, 
"  the  best  advice  I  can  give  you  is  to  take  all  the 
others  out  and  put  this  one  in. ' ' 

There  you  have  the  monosyllables  again.  In 
the  same  way,  when  he  was  called  to  account  by 
the  mayor,  mobbed  in  the  streets,  he  still  held  to 
the  same  simple  forms  of  statement,  still  declined 
to  make  the  slightest  compromise,  still  said  his 
words  in  the  plainest  way.  Following  him, 
the  men  who  came  forward  —  and  women  —  on 
the  platform,  all  from  the  very  first  struck  a  point 
of  contact  with  the  plain  people  —  that  very 
phrase  came  from  Charles  Sumner  himself,  per 
haps  the  most  learned  among  them  all  — "  the 
plain  people  ' '  —  and  hence  the  plain  people  fol 
lowed  them.  Garrison  had  said : 

"  I  am  in  earnest;  I  will  not  equivocate;  I  will 


jo  Anti-Slavery 

not  retract  a  single  inch;  I  will  be  heard." 
And  he  was  heard. 

It  happened  very  frequently,  by  one  of  those 
things  which  we  call  fortunate,  or  providential, 
according  to  our  habits,  that  he  reached  and 
called  to  him  the  man  who,  of  all  the  young  men 
of  Boston,  was  the  most  favored,  the  most  intel 
lectually  gifted,  the  most  assisted  by  circum 
stances  in  obtaining  prestige. 

When  some  celebrated  Englishman  was  in  Bos 
ton,  and  was  at  the  office  of  Mr.  Ticknor  —  the 
study  of  Mr.  Ticknor,  which  looked  on  Park  street 
in  Boston,  looked  across  on  the  Common  —  he  was 
complaining,  with  the  frankness  of  Englishmen, 
of  the  absence  of  a  controlling  look  of  gentleman- 
liness  about  Americans.  He  said  he  had  scarcely 
seen  a  man  in  America  who  looked  to  him  like  a 
gentleman.  And  it  was  perfectly  true  at  that 
time,  and  is  to-day,  that  the  average  American  is 
not  groomed  quite  so  well,  he  is  not  so  suggestive 
of  the  valet  in  the  brushing  of  his  coat  and 
the  set  of  his  hat  as  the  average  Englishman. 
At  any  rate,  this  man  thought  so,  and  he  said, 
as  he  walked  up  and  down  the  room  talking 
about  it: 

' '  Stop !  Who  are  those  walking  up  and  down 
the  street  on  the  other  side?  They  are  the  only 
two  men  I  have  seen  in  your  country  who  had 
the  look  of  gentlemen ! ' '  Mr.  Ticknor  went  to 
the  window  and  smiled  and  said, 

"  You   will    hardly  believe  it,  but  those   two 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  71 

men  are  two  of  our  most  extreme  radicals  —  they 
are  Wendell  Phillips  and  Edmund  Quincy." 

4 'What  do  I  care,"  said  the  Englishman, 
"  whether  they  are  radicals  or  not?  I  don't  know 
what  you  call  radicalism  here.  What  I  said  was 
that  they  were  the  only  two  that  looked  like 
gentlemen."  And  both  those  typical  gentlemen 
were  the  first  who  rallied  around  the  plain, 
strong  printer's  boy  from  Newburyport,  who 
did  not  know  or  care  whether  he  looked  like  a 
gentleman  or  not.  He  looked  like  a  man  —  that 
was  enough. 

My  elder  brother,  who  was  in  college  with 
Wendell  Phillips,  used  to  say  that  of  all  the  Har 
vard  students  of  his  time  there  was  but  one  for 
whom  the  family  carriage  was  sent  out  from  Bos 
ton  every  Saturday  to  take  him  home  to  stay 
over  Sunday.  That  one  was  Wendell  Phillips, 
and  he  therefore  brought  this  tradition  of  cul 
ture  —  what  was  called  culture  then,  this  tradition 
of  social  polish,  to  strengthen  the  tradition  and 
the  habit  of  Garrison's  monosyllables  on  the 
other  side.  And  from  the  time  he  first  found 
himself  at  Faneuil  Hall  and  made,  in  answer  to 
the  district  attorney's  pro-slavery  defense  of  the 
Alton  mob,  his  appeal  to  the  pictured  ancestors 
on  the  walls,  he  stood,  as  he  stands  to  this  day, 
the  recognized  superior  —  I  will  not  say  of  all 
American  orators,  though  perhaps  I  might  say 
it,  but  certainly  of  all  New  England  orators. 

Wendell    Phillips 's    manner    brought   with  it 


72  Anti-Slavery 

that  air  of  comparative  repose  which  character 
izes  the  speaking  of  today  —  the  directness  and 
simplicity.  Indeed  it  was  almost  an  extreme. 
He  began  his  addresses  so  quietly  that  it  always 
bewildered  the  Southern  visitors,  who  frequently 
came  into  the  anti-slavery  meetings  and  some 
times  spoke  there,  in  a  very  manly  and  direct 
way. 

They  would  say,  *'  This  quiet  person,  is  he  the 
famous  agitator? "  And  we  on  the  platform 
sometimes  found  his  beginnings  a  little  too 
quiet.  The  remedy  was  to  send  two  or  three 
young  fellows  up  into  the  gallery  to  hiss  a  little  — 
and  then  the  tide  came  in.  He  rose  invariably 
with  the  occasion.  He  could  not  be  said  to  love 
public  speaking ;  he  always  said  that  he  did  not 
desire  it  at  all,  that  he  would  rather  never  make 
another  speech. 

I  think  he  had  enough  in  him  of  the  old  tradi 
tion  that  he  would  have  liked  better  the  recog 
nized  ways.  He  always  said  he  should  like  to  be 
in  the  United  States  Senate.  In  theory  he 
didn't  enjoy  mob  oratory  —  it  was  when  the  fight 
came  on  that  he  enjoyed  it.  More  than  once  I 
have  gone  to  meetings  with  him,  and  he  has  said, 
'*  Why  do  these  people  all  come  out  to  the  meet 
ings?  There,  for  instance,  is  a  man  and  wife; 
two  comfortable,  respectable  looking  people. 
They  have  a  pleasant  home,  a  pleasant  family 
fire,  occupations  of  their  own.  Why  do  they 
leave  it  to  come  out  to  hear  anybody  lecture?  " 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  73 

He  always  appreciated  the  position  of  those 
who  didn't  go  to  his  lectures,  and  was  rather 
sorry  for  those  who  did.  And  yet  public 
speaking  became  to  him  more  than  to  anybody 
else,  perhaps,  the  absorbing  pursuit  of  life.  He 
himself  had,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word, 
no  comfortable  home.  His  wife  was  a  con 
firmed  invalid,  always  giving  fire  to  his  thought 
and  energy,  but  always  an  invalid.  There  was  no 
home  room.  The  parlor  was  forlorn,  the 
dining-room  was  forlorn ;  it  was  a  sea  of  news 
papers.  It  was  in  his  wife's  sick-room,  where 
strangers  were  rarely  admitted,  that  you  saw 
Wendell  Phillips  at  home.  And  it  was  the  con 
centration  of  a  life. 

Nothing  can  be  more  unreasonable  than  my 
friend  Professor  Wendell's  statement  in  his  recent 
very  valuable  book  upon  the  "  History  of  Ameri 
can  Literature  ' '  that  Garrison,  for  instance,  and 
Parker  were  coarse  and  vehement  of  speech  be 
cause  they  were  born  plebeians,  they  were  men 
of  the  people.  Their  worst  efforts  in  the  form 
of  vehemence  of  speech  could  not  be  compared 
to  what  the  scions  of  the  first  families  of  Boston 
were  ready  at  any  time  to  say  and  do  to  them. 

Phillips  himself  was  capable  of  extreme  plain 
ness  and  even  injustice  of  speech.  The  anti- 
slavery  movement  could  not,  in  its  nature,  be  a 
school  for  carefully  weighing  words ;  but  it  could 
be  a  school  for  the  superb  use  of  them.  The 
power  of  directness  never  was  more  highly  culti- 


74  Anti-Slavery 

vated.  There  never  in  this  world  was  a  more 
absolutely  unselfish  gathering  of  men  and  women 
than  there  was  there.  Even  the  other  reforms 
came  nearer  to  the  basis  of  selfishness,  because 
they  came  nearer  to  the  homes  of  the  people  who 
promoted  them ;  but  this  movement  was  to  save 
the  homes  and  lives  of  people  at  a  distance,  of  a 
different  color,  of  a  different  race.  It  was  the 
most  unselfish  movement  in  the  history  of  the 
country,  at  least  the  most  unselfish  I  ever  knew 
of  or  had  to  do  with. 

One  incidental  advantage  of  this  was  that  it 
always  had  surroundings  even  on  the  platform, 
that  went  far  beyond  those  of  any  other  move 
ment  ;  it  was  always  the  most  picturesque  of  plat 
forms. 

It  had  not  only  these  persons  of  strong  nat 
ural  command  in  their  aspect,  like  Garrison, 
or  of  traditional  refinement  like  Phillips  and 
Quincy;  but  it  had,  of  course,  also  its  fringe  of 
picturesque  and  generally  amiable  fanatics; 
those  "men  with  beards,"  whom  Emerson 
describes  as  characteristic  of  the  early  reform 
meetings  in  Boston,  at  a  time  when  merely  to 
have  a  beard  was  to  step  outside  of  the  proprie 
ties  of  life  and  make  one  marked. 

The  chief  type  of  these  was  Charles  Burleigh, 
whom  some  of  you  remember,  who  for  the  simple 
offense  of  letting  his  beard  and  hair  grow  as 
nature  made  them,  was  often  charged  in  the 
newspapers  with  the  blasphemous  effort  to  resem- 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  75 

ble  the  pictures  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  he  un 
doubtedly  did. 

And  when  James  Russell  Lowell  in  his  earlier 
enthusiasm  took  up  the  anti-slavery  reform  and 
used  to  go  about  with  Burleigh,  he  too  let  his 
beard  grow,  then  a  very  rare  phenomenon,  and 
it  used  to  amuse  him  very  much  at  the  way 
people  would  look  at  Burleigh  and  point  out 
Lowell,  the  young  neophyte,  trying  to  look  as 
blasphemous  as  Burleigh  did  by  letting  his  beard 
grow! 

Then  there  was  old  Father  Lamson,  always 
dressed  in  white  and  always  ready  to  protest 
against  the  sins  of  the  world.  Then  Abby 
Folsom,  whose  shrill  voice  mounted  high  at  any 
suggestion  of  hissing  or  dissent,  "  It  is  the  capi 
talists!  "  long  before  real  capitalists  on  the 
modern  scale  had  begun  to  exist  in  America. 

Then  there  were  old  Quakers,  venerable  men 
who  simply  gave  their  looks  and  their  silence  to 
the  meetings.  And  then,  most  perceptible  of 
all,  was  the  perpetual  circle  of  newly  arrived 
fugitive  slaves  who  had  just  been  landed  on  the 
wharves  of  Boston  and  unpacked  from  boxes  or 
barrels  where  they  had  been  stood  on  their  heads 
perhaps  for  hours  on  the  way;  or  women  like 
Harriet  Tubman  who,  after  making  her  own 
escape  had  gone  back  seven  times  into  slavery 
to  bring  out  parties  of  fugitives  with  her;  or 
women  like  Elizabeth  Blakely,  who  had  crowded 
herself  up  into  a  narrow  passage  between  the 


76  Anti-Slavery 

wall  of  the  ladies'  cabin  and  the  side  of  the  ship, 
a  passage  so  narrow  that  she  was  hidden  and  they 
could  not  find  her,  though  they  knew  she  was  on 
board  and  they  had  fumigated  the  whole  ship 
twice  with  sulphur  to  drive  her  out ;  but  she  still 
stayed  on  and  came  out  alive  in  Boston.  It  was 
all  picturesque  life,  novel  life,  real  life,  new 
incidents. 

And  then  there  would  perhaps  come  some  man 
stumbling  in  his  heavy  slavery  gait  upon  the 
platform,  walking  as  if  a  hundred  pounds  of 
Virginia  mud  or  South  Carolina  chains  were 
appended  to  each  heel;  and  that  man  would 
afterwards,  under  the  influence  of  freedom, 
develop  into  the  superb  stature  and  the  distin 
guished  bearing  of  Frederick  Douglass. 

Those  were  the  incidents  of  the  platform.  A 
deaf  man  might  have  gone  into  an  anti-slavery 
meeting  and  been  thrilled  from  beginning  to  end, 
without  hearing  a  word  that  was  said. 

And  in  the  midst  of  this,  Wendell  Phillips  with 
his  natural  gifts,  took  the  leadership.  There 
were,  of  course,  times  when  it  was  comparatively 
easy  sailing,  when  he  had  his  statement  to  make 
and  no  immediate  contest ;  and  then  there  would 
be  other  times  when  there  would  be  a  direct 
almost  hand-to-hand,  at  least  voice-to-voice  con 
test  with  some  mob  of  assailants. 

I  remember  one  of  these,  for  instance,  in 
Faneuil  Hall  when  the  Abolitionists  had  been 
shut  out  there  for  a  long  time. 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  77 

It  was  after  Webster's  seventh  of  March  speech 
and  Webster  also,  by  creating  antagonism,  had 
been  shut  out  for  a  time.  The  Abolitionists  got 
in  first  and  then  the  young  enthusiasts  for 
Webster,  mostly  young  lawyers  and  business 
men,  came  by  hundreds  and  made  a  mob,  a  solid 
body  in  the  middle  of  Faneuil  Hall  determined 
absolutely  to  silence  Wendell  Phillips. 

Practically  they  did  silence  him  for  a  time, 
because  the  moment  he  began  to  speak  the  shout 
would  be  given,  "  Three  cheers  for  Daniel  Web 
ster  ! ' '  and  the  cheers  would  ring  and  ring. 
Finally  they  would  die  away,  and  then  Phillips 
would  hasten  to  begin  again,  and  the  cheers 
would  begin  again.  This  happened  again  and 
again  some  three  or  four  times,  absolutely  silenc 
ing  Phillips.  Phillips  then  chose  his  method  of 
defense.  He  foresaw  that  in  a  little  while  even 
the  luxury  of  cheering  would  become  monot 
onous,  the  cheerers  would  get  a  little  out  of 
breath.  So  when  the  intervals  began  to  become 
a  little  longer  after  the  cheering  Phillips,  sud 
denly  struck  in  with  a  wholly  unexpected  appeal, 
and  himself  called  for  cheers  for  Daniel  Webster. 

"  Yes, "  he  said,  "  three  cheers  for  Daniel  Web 
ster,  for  the  man  who  said  so-and-so,  and  then 
went  and  did  so-and-so ! ' ' 

And  he  had  got  in  four  or  five  good  points 
of  his  argument  before  they  knew  where  they 
were  and  began  to  cheer  again.  Then  would 
come  another  lull,  with  some  curiosity  to  know 


7  8  Anti-Slavery 

what  he  would  say  next.  He  was  waiting  pa 
tiently. 

"  Yes, "  he  would  cry,  "  three  cheers  for  Daniel 
Webster,  who  on  such  and  such  a  day  committed 
himself  to  so-and-so,  and  then  afterwards  said  so- 
and-so!  " 

He  would  be  interrupted,  but  each  time  his 
chance  would  become  greater,  and  he  would  say : 
'*  Oh,  I  love  to  repeat  the  Book  of  Daniel! 
Three  cheers  for  the  man  who  did  this  or  that!  " 

And  by  degrees  he  had  so  tired  out  that  mob  of 
howling  but  inexperienced  youth  that  their 
cheers  gradually  died  down,  and  Phillips  had 
begun  to  call  for  three  cheers  for  Charles  Sum- 
ner  and  half  the  audience  were  joining  in  those 
cheers.  Never  did  I  see  such  a  personal  triumph 
of  one  man  over  many.  And  the  whole  concep 
tion  of  it,  the  strategy  of  it,  the  individuality  of 
it  belonged  to  Wendell  Phillips  alone. 

Then  while  combining  this  power  of  con 
test  he  also  had  a  power  of  what  would  more 
commonly  be  recognized  as  oratory.  If  you  read 
his  two  volumes  of  orations  you  will  find  in 
them  here  and  there  passages  of  the  superbest 
continuity,  of  an  ocean-like  grace  and  dignity. 

There  is  one  passage  there  which  I  once  could 
repeat  verbatim,  but  cannot  now  —  one  passage 
there  comparing  slavery  and  war  and  showing 
slavery  to  be  the  worst  evil,  the  more  crushing 
peril  of  the  two.  It  swells  like  ocean's  surges, 
and  finally,  enumerating  point  by  point  he  comes 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  79 

to  the  conclusion,  taking  into  consideration  very 
fully  the  evils  on  both  sides,  he  comes  to  this 
superb  climax: 

'*  Where  is  the  battle-field  that  is  not  white  — 
white  as  an  angel's  wing  compared  with  the 
blackness  of  that  darkness  that  has  brooded  over 
the  Carolinas  for  centuries?" 

I  have  good  reason  to  remember  that  passage. 
I  used  to  say  it  in  anti-slavery  speeches  in  small 
country  towns,  and  I  remember  on  one  occasion 
where  I  was  thrilling  my  audience,  or  at  least 
myself,  and  I  rose  to  that  point  in  the  conclusion 
that  I  said: 

"  Where  is  the  battle-field  that  is  not  white, 
white  as  the  raven's  wing?  " 

And  I  have  no  memory  of  an  audience  more 
curious  than  the  bewildered  way  in  which,  in  that 
small  country  church  somewhere  in  central  New 
York,  I  could  watch  the  different  faces  as  I  made 
some  feeble  apology  that  it  was  inevitable  that 
slavery  should  mix  black  and  white,  or  something 
like  that ;  I  could  watch  the  difference  between  the 
young  and  ardent  who  grasped  at  the  blunder  in 
a  minute  and  enjoyed  it  thoroughly,  and  their 
more  meditative  parents,  who  after  tackling  with 
it  a  while  understood  it  by  degrees;  and  the 
respectable  citizens  in  the  side  aisles  who  didn't 
fairly  comprehend  that  anything  was  gone  wrong 
and  probably  never  have  fathomed  it. 

And,  you  are  to  remember  that  on  this  anti- 
slavery  platform  there  was  a  race  of  men  and 


8o  Anti-Slavery 

women  who  had  been  trained  by  the  move 
ment  itself,  who  had  brought  their  various  gifts 
to  it  and  who,  while  retaining  the  greatest  indi 
viduality  and  speaking  for  themselves,  still  had 
different  points  of  view  to  contribute. 

Phillips  sometimes  though  rarely,  tried  to 
modify  a  little  the  statements  of  the  more  ex 
travagant  —  as  where,  for  instance,  Charles  Lenox 
Remond  of  Salem,  a  colored  man  of  great  ability, 
and  who  it  seemed  to  me  as  a  free  colored 
man  was  bitterer  about  slavery  than  the  men 
who  had  achieved  their  own  freedom.  When 
Charles  Remond  used  the  expression  often  quoted 
that  *  *  George  Washington  was  a  villain, ' ' 

"  Charles,"  said  Wendell  Phillips,  "  the  epithet 
is  not  felicitous  ' '  —  which  I  always  thought  one 
of  the  most  delicate  repressions  ever  applied  to 
an  over-zealous  apostle. 

Then  there  would  be  that  fine  type  of  the 
yeoman  reformer,  Stephen  Foster  of  Worcester, 
a  man  who  had  the  arms,  the  big  hands,  and  the 
sunburned  face  of  the  thorough  farmer  that  he 
was;  who  had  taken  the  stoniest  farm  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  and 
made  it  into  the  best  by  the  labor  of  those  same 
hands  and  arms;  and  who,  when  I  once  said  to 
him,  "  I  should  think  you  would  like  better  to 
farm  it  at  the  west,  where  you  would  have  a 
better  soil  to  deal  with,"  replied,  "  I  should  hate 
to  farm  it  at  the  west.  I  don't  wish  to  put  my 
spade  into  the  ground  where  it  doesn't  strike  a 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  81 

rock."  There  was  the  abolitionist  turned 
farmer,  or  the  farmer  turned  abolitionist. 

I  remember  the  time  when  one  of  those  southern 
speakers  who,  as  I  have  said,  came  into  the  meet 
ings  in  a  manly  way  and  spoke  their  minds 
sometimes  —  I  remember  when  Foster  had  been 
rather  too  hard  upon  this  man,  as  I  thought 
pressed  him  rather  too  closely.  The  young  fellow 
turned  to  him  with  his  southern  feeling  and  said : 

44  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  I  lie?  " 

44  Don't  know  anything  about  that,"  said 
Stephen  Foster,  going  steadily  on  with  his  plow 
share  no  matter  whom  he  hit  — 44 1  don't  know 
anything  about  whether  you'd  lie  or  not.  /  know 
you  steal"  assuming  as  the  foundation  for  his 
statement  the  principle  that  no  man  could  ever 
have  ownership  in  men. 

I  thought  then,  and  I  think  now,  that  the  aboli 
tionists  were  not  always  just  in  their  impeach 
ments.  I  don't  think  that  Garrison  himself  was. 
What  I  mean  is,  they  stated  their  principles 
broadly  and  truly  and  they  applied  them  to 
slaveholders  as  a  class  with  a  certain  justice,  but 
what  they  did  not  realize  was  the  terrific  compli 
cations  which  slavery  had  brought  with  it,  and 
the  multitude  of  cases  in  which  there  were 
slaveholders  as  absolutely  powerless  to  free  their 
slaves  as  they  would  be  to  swim  across  the 
Atlantic  —  slaveholders  impoverished  by  their 
parents,  not  able  to  guide  their  slaves  into  the 
land  of  freedom,  and  living  in  states  where  the 


82  Anti-Slavery 

laws  were  so  fiendishly  strict  that  a  man  absolutely 
could  not  free  his  slaves  even  if  he  took  them  out 
of  the  state. 

There  were  three  or  four  of  the  slave  states 
where,  to  make  emancipation  personally  impossi 
ble,  it  was  the  law  that  any  slave  set  free  by  his 
master  should  be  arrested  by  the  authorities 
and  sold  to  the  highest  bidder  at  auction.  What 
could  a  slaveholder  do  under  circumstances  like 
that? 

So  far  as  the  training  of  oratory  is  concerned, 
which  is  the  point  now  at  stake,  I  have  never 
seen  a  school  which  seemed  to  me  equal  to  this 
anti-slavery  movement.  And  there  grew  out  of 
this  special  reform,  or  joined  it,  other  reforms 
none  of  them  quite  so  radical  in  the  antagonism 
they  produced,  but  of  immense  importance  —  the 
temperance  movement,  the  woman  suffrage 
movement,  and  then,  in  general,  the  lyceum 
movement,  the  creation  of  a  system  of  lyceum 
lectures  throughout  the  country. 

Some  of  you  will  remember  that  extraordinary 
man,  unique  among  speakers,  who  first  created 
the  great  temperance  movement  and  then  led 
the  lyceum  movement,  a  man  whose  name  is 
already  being  forgotten  like  the  names  of  all 
orators.  All  orators  are  forgotten.  As  Rufus 
Choate  said,  a  book  is  the  only  immortality  —  and 
even  books  die  young  very  often.  I  refer  to  John 
B.  Gough. 

John  B.  Gough  was  a  man  born  for  the  stage, 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  83 

trained  upon  the  stage,  and  carrying  upon  the 
platform  in  his  temperance  lectures  the  united 
ability  of  amusement  and  entertainment  of  any 
half-dozen  troops  of  comedians  who  throng  the 
stages  of  your  theaters.  He  filled  the  stage  him 
self.  He  never  was  still  a  moment.  He  was 
constantly  running  from  one  end  of  the  stage  to 
the  other,  and  gesticulating,  from  his  head  to  his 
feet  —  even  with  his  knees  and  his  elbows  —  he 
might  be  called  the  Cissy  Loftus  of  the  temper 
ance  stage. 

So  great  was  his  power  that  when  he  turned 
his  attention  to  lyceum  oratory,  he  earned  an 
income  of  thirty  thousand  dollars  a  year,  simply 
by  his  outside  lectures. 

He  lectured  every  day  in  the  year,  often  two  or 
three  times  in  the  day.  And  all  that  he  earned 
he  gave  away  in  some  form  or  other.  He  not 
only  thought,  as  some  men  of  this  generation, 
that  our  rich  men  ought  not  to  die  rich,  but  he 
thought  they  ought  not  to  live  rich. 

Once  when  planning  for  a  new  regiment  in  the 
Civil  War,  I  went  to  him  and  implored  him  to  be 
come  ordained  and  go  down  as  chaplain  of  the 
regiment,  he  told  me  just  how  he  was  situated 
and  he  gave  me  a  long  list  of  young  men  who 
had  entered  college  with  the  understanding  that 
he  was  to  pay  their  way  through,  and  their  way 
was  to  be  paid  by  his  gains  still  to  be  made 
by  lecturing.  He  was  so  entangled  by  his  own 
good  deeds  that  he  could  not  do  what  perhaps 


84  Anti-Slavery 

might  have  "been  a  better  deed  than  any  of  them. 

Besides  him  came  into  the  lyceum  move 
ment  the  extraordinary  power  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher.  I  never  was  so  disappointed  as  when  I 
heard  Henry  Ward  Beecher  for  the  first  time, 
when  he  came  from  Indianapolis.  Three-fourths 
of  what  he  said  was  read  from  a  manuscript ;  but 
suddenly  an  inspiration  would  come  and  he  would 
be  before  the  audience,  originating  all  sorts  of 
wild  thoughts  and  expressing  them  with  that 
immense  originality  in  which  no  one  on  the  plat 
form  ever  equalled  him. 

Then  he  would  go  on  and  read  his  notes  again, 
becoming  only  gradually  emancipated  from  them. 
Afterwards  his  extraordinary  power  was  devel 
oped,  as  you  know,  never  entirely  free  from 
coarseness,  never  quite  to  be  trusted  in  the 
things  he  might  say  or  the  illustrations  he  might 
use,  but  still  unique  —  as  unique  as  Phillips  in 
his  own  way. 

Then  there  was  that  other  high-bred  and  model 
gentleman  of  the  period,  George  William  Curtis, 
a  man  born  for  a  poet  and  made  by  conscience  a 
reformer,  a  man  whose  very  bearing  carried  such 
high  breeding  and  whose  voice  such  exquisite 
music  that  it  made  little  difference  what  he 
said. 

When  Curtis  was  sent  as  a  member  of  the  New 
York  constitutional  convention  he  happened  to 
be  one  day  in  the  ante-room  writing  a  letter, 
when  two  of  his  fellow-members  came  in  and  sat 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  85 

down  and  began  the  favorite  subject  of  gossiping 
about  one  another.  They  went  over  the  different 
members  and  handled  them  as  men  do  under  the 
same  circumstances  —  possibly  even  women  may 
have  similar  interests.  Curtis  watched  them 
with  pleased  amusement,  and  when  at  last  he 
saw  that  they  were  getting  round  to  him  there 
was  no  chance  of  retreat;  he  had  to  hold  his 
ground.  And  one  of  them  said: 

"  Now,  there's  Curtis." 

"Yes,"  said  the  other,  "there's  Curtis,"  in 
rather  a  disparaging  way.  Said  the  first  one, 

"  Curtis  is  what  you  may  call  an  intelligent 
man. ' ' 

4  *  Yes, ' '  said  the  other,  *  *  an  intelligent  man. ' ' 
Said  the  first  one,  rather  roused, 

1  *  Curtis  is  a  very  intelligent  man. ' ' 

"Well,"  said  the  other,  "I  don't  know  but 
what  you  might  call  Curtis  a  very  intelligent 
man  —  for  a  literary  man. ' ' 

Both  upon  the  anti- slavery  platform  and 
elsewhere,  the  quality  of  leadership  began  to  be 
shown  by  women.  Lucretia  Mott,  always  strong, 
motherly,  sensible  —  I  remember  once  when  Mr. 
Barnum,  not  the  most  refined  of  men,  the  cele 
brated  showman,  a  man  of  great  ability,  had  been 
making  a  speech  and  Mrs.  Mott  was  called  after 
him. 

There  could  hardly  be  a  greater  contrast  than 
between  her  Quaker  garb  and  her  motherly, 
wise  appearance  and  his.  And  she  said  she  had 


86  Anti-Slavery 

heard  with  great  interest  what  Mr.  Barnum  had 
been  saying,  and  thought  he  had  been  uttering 
some  very  excellent  opinions,  although,  she  said, 
41  some  of  his  anecdotes  were  a  little  too  gross  for 
ears  polite."  I  never  saw  a  man  —  who  was 
holding  the  world  of  money -making  in  his  hands 
at  that  moment  —  more  conclusively  sat  upon,  as 
the  rising  generation  say,  than  Mr.  P.  T.  Barnum 
was  at  that  moment. 

I  remember  Anna  Dickinson  with  her  fire,  her 
enthusiasm,  and  her  curious  way  of  carrying  the 
elegancies  of  life  upon  the  platform  and  trailing 
silks  and  velvets  on  the  often  bare  boards.  She 
had  a  tinge  of  the  actress  in  her  blood  also,  which 
led  her  at  last  upon  the  stage. 

And  then,  above  all,  that  woman  of  the 
sweetest  voice  and  the  sweetest  of  manners, 
Lucy  Stone.  I  never  shall  forget  how,  when  Lucy 
Stone  had  spoken  once  at  Brattleboro,  Vermont, 
where  my  sisters  were  then  living,  one  of  my 
sisters  writing  me  an  account  of  the  meeting  — 
she  being  utterly  opposed  to  the  whole  movement 

—  burst  out  in  indignation,  not  that  Lucy  Stone 
should  be  so  objectionable  but  that  being  a  re 
former  she  should  be  so  lovely. 

She  said,  "  What  business  had  that  sweet  creat 
ure,  with  her  winning  voice,  she  whose  very 
look  suggests  a  home  and  a  husband  and  a  baby 

—  what  business  had  she  amidst  that  crowd?  " 
And  later  in  life  I  remember  when  once  I  took 

one  of  the  most  gifted  of  American  women,  the 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  87 

late  Mrs.  Helen  Jackson  —  Helen  Hunt  she  was 
first,  the  author  of  * '  Ramona  ' '  —  when  I  took 
her,  by  my  own  request,  to  a  woman  suffrage 
meeting  in  New  York  where  Lucy  Stone  was  to 
speak,  she  said  to  me : 

"  I  don't  think  you  will  wish  to  take  me  when 
I  tell  you  I  am  going  on  purpose  to  make  fun  of 
the  whole  thing  in  the  New  York  Tribune. ' '  I 
said, 

*'  Oh,  yes,  that  makes  no  difference;  I  will 
take  the  chance  of  that.  Come  along."  We 
went  together  and  sat  together.  As  we  came  out 
after  Lucy  had  made  one  of  her  sweetest  appeals 
we  walked  out,  I  remember,  into  the  dark  and 
stormy  night,  and  Mrs.  Jackson  took  my  arm  to 
walk  along  under  my  umbrella;  she  was  very 
silent,  she  said  nothing  about  it.  And  I  said 
to  her: 

"  Well,  have  you  your  notes  ready  for  your 
Tribune  article?  "  She  pressed  my  arm  and  said, 

'  *  Do  you  suppose  that  I  could  ever  write  a  word 
against  anything  that  a  woman  with  a  voice  like 
that  wants  to  have  done?  "  And  she  did  not. 

I  spoke  once  before,  but  not  so  fully  as  I 
wished,  of  the  man  who  on  the  anti-slavery  plat 
form,  from  his  combination  of  the  two  races,  was 
most  interesting  and  most  commanding  for  a 
time,  though  not  always  —  for  he  differed  from 
the  others  in  detail  and  was  more  of  a  voting 
abolitionist  than  they  were  —  Frederick  Douglass. 

In   later  years  I  walked  once  with  Frederick 


88  Anti-Slavery 

Douglass  through  the  streets  of  Worcester.  It 
was  the  middle  of  winter  and  he  wore  a  leopard- 
skin  coat  and  cap.  I  well  remember  looking  at 
him  as  he  towered  above  my  head  and  saying  to 
myself: 

"  Make  the  most  of  this  opportunity.  You 
never  before  have  walked  the  streets  with  so  dis 
tinguished-looking  a  man,  and  you  never  will 
again. ' '  And  I  never  have. 

This  man  whom  I  had'  seen  rise  out  of  this 
clumsy  lingering  of  the  slavery  manner,  shot 
up  into  a  superb  man.  This  man,  who  learned 
originally  to  write  from  the  placards  in  the  Balti 
more  streets  after  he  was  eighten,  and  by  paying 
a  little  boy  with  an  apple  to  tell  him  what  certain 
letters  were  —  this  man  gained  such  a  command 
of  speech  and  language  that  Mr.  Yerrington,  then 
the  leading  reporter  of  Boston,  who  always 
reported  the  anti-slavery  meetings,  told  me  that 
of  all  the  speakers  in  those  meetings,  there  were 
but  two  who  could  be  reported  without  verbal 
alteration  precisely  as  they  sppke,  and  those  two 
were  Wendell  Phillips  and  Frederick  Douglass  — 
the  representative  of  the  patrician  training  on  the 
one  side,  and  the  representative  of  the  Maryland 
slave  on  the  other. 

The  tact  of  the  man,  the  address  of  the  man, 
and  the  humor  of  the  man  made  him  almost 
irresistible  on  the  platform.  He  always  had 
this  proud  bearing,  and  yet  he  was  a  perfect 
mimic.  He  could  reproduce  anything;  he  could 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  89 

meet  any  occasion.  I  remember  him  once  at  a 
convention  in  New  York.  The  meeting  had  been 
overpowered  by  Captain  Rynders,  who  was  then 
the  head  of  the  swell  mob  in  New  York.  He  had 
taken  possession  of  the  meeting,  had  placed 
himself  in  the  chair  and  graciously  allowed  the 
meeting  to  go  on  tinder  his  presidency.  He  had 
tried  in  vain  to  stop  Douglass  and  check  him,  and 
had  fallen  back  upon  brutal  interruptions,  even 
saying,  for  instance,  "  Oh,  you  want  to  cut  all 
our  throats ! ' ' 

' '  Oh,  no, ' '  said  the  superb  Douglass,  bending 
down  graciously  over  him  and  waving  his 
hand  a  little  over  Rynders 's  tangled  and 
soiled  headdress,  '*  Oh,  no,  we  will  not  cut 
your  throats ;  we  will  only  cut  your  hair. ' '  And 
the  supporters  of  Rynders  felt  the  situation  as 
much  as  anybody.  I  speak  of  Douglass  the  more 
because  he  has  as  yet  left  no  rival  of  his  type. 
Even  Booker  Washington,  with  all  his  remark 
able  qualities  and  undoubtedly  an  organizing 
power  which  Douglass  had  not,  and  perhaps 
destined  in  the  end  to  be  a  more  visibly  useful 
man,  has  not  that  supreme  power  over  an  audi 
ence  which  Douglass  had. 

The  man  who,  in  physique,  among  the  anti- 
slavery  speakers  was  most  like  Douglass  was 
wholly  without  his  humor.  Charles  Sumner  was 
overpowering  in  gravity  and  earnestness,  but  he 
could  only  speak  right  on,  although  that  he  did 
superbly.  I  never  shall  forget  the  impression 


90  Anti-Slavery 

he  made  when  he  first  came  forward,  as  a  young 
man  after  his  return  from  Europe,  to  preach 
reform  among  the  Harvard  graduates  and  to  talk 
on  the  true  grandeur  of  nations. 

There  was  Sumner,  a  man  tall  and  stately  like 
Douglass  but  dressed,  I  remember,  in  the  swell 
costume  of  that  period  —  a  blue  dress-coat  with 
bright  buttons,  a  white  waistcoat,  drab  trousers. 
And  I  remember  that  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of 
his  in  Boston,  in  allusion  to  that  speech  and  to 
the  opposition  he  had  first  received  from  the  col 
lege,  said: 

*'  There  was  that  man  Sumner,  speaking  with 
a  soul  as  white  as  his  waistcoat ;  and  those  clergy 
men  trying  to  put  him  down,  with  their  hearts 
as  black  as  their  coats."  Sumner  kept  up  the 
standard  of  knowledge,  the  standard  of  high 
training  beyond  any  of  the  anti-slavery  speakers ; 
but  he  had  not  their  adaptation,  he  had  not  their 
grace. 

I  am  perhaps  lingering  too  long,  over  these 
personal  reminiscences.  I  am  sometimes  pained 
at  the  discovery  that  the  standard  of  virtue  and 
vice  varies  with  advancing  years,  and  that  what 
is  stigmatized  as  mere  gossip  in  a  young  man  is 
recognized  as  a  virtue  and  even  invited  as  a 
lecture  in  a  man  coming  near  to  his  eighties. 

It  is  demoralizing;  if  we  are  all  gossips  and 
twaddlers,  it  is  your  fault.  But  nevertheless 
I  know,  although  I  say  this,  how  much  it  is  to 
those  who  are  just  coming  forward  into  a  com- 


and  Lyceum  Oratory  91 

mtinity  so  largely  composed  of  great  names  and 
memories ;  it  is  sometimes  a  great  deal  to  have, 
through  a  personal  link,  a  tie  to  some  other  men 
and  women.  It  is  this  which  has  tempted  me  so 
far. 

I  have  tried  to  portray  to  you  the  successive 
stages  of  American  oratory  and  to  bring  you  to 
a  stage  still  far  from  the  present,  but  which  is 
represented  even  to  this  day  in  the  habit  of  direct 
ness,  of  simplicity,  of  straightforward  talk  and  to 
some  degree,  of  monosyllables.  And  when  I 
point  you  to  what  I  think,  even  to  this  day,  the 
two  great  high-water  marks  of  our  public  speak 
ing*  yotl  will  go  back  with  the  memory  of  this 
progress  I  have  traced,  you  will  go  back  to  Lin 
coln's  Gettysburg  address  and  John  Brown's 
speech  in  the  court-room,  and  you  will  find  all 
true  of  them  which  I  have  claimed  as  part  of  the 
progress  of  American  oratory. 


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